Col. William Leake, Travels in the Morea (v.1-3)

ToposText · Col. William Leake · 1,407 sections

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§ 2.014 civilized ages of Greece, to be a characteristic of the country, multiplying works of defence in every part of it; so that, with the exception of Attica, the Eleia, and a few other districts, there were, in strictly Hellenic times, very few inhabitants who did not protect themselves from danger at night within the walls of a fortress. At present, when insecurity, though not exactly arising from the same causes, is greater than it ever was, there is a still larger proportion of the natives driven to the mountains, and we find, as in ancient times, that there generally exists near every remarkable summit a village, which either derives its name from, or gives its name to the mountain. Some persons, perhaps, may be inclined to think that Kakaletri is the position of Eira, and that Tetrazi was that Mount Eira into which the Messenians retired when they were driven out of the country situated immediately on its southern side. It would certainly be a natural refuge under such circumstances: I must also admit, not only that the lofty summit of Tetrazi, covered with snow half the year, agrees better with the “white” mountain of Rhianus than any other near the Neda to the westward; but that the
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§ 2.015 position of Kakaletri, immediately overhanging the Neda, is very much in accordance with the circumstances related of the fortress of Eira Even these reasons, however, seem to me insufficient to contravene those which I have already alleged, in favour of Eira having been on a part of the river below Phigaleia. I had scarcely been long enough at the tern pie to take a few measurements, and to obtain a general idea of the building, when I found the day fast advancing to a close, and the rain beginning to fall I was therefore obliged to hasten away, not at all to the regret of my janissary, who, being a native of the soft climate of Kalamata, was greatly annoyed by the cold damp air of the mountain, and sat huddled up at the foot of a column, endeavouring to keep out the enemy, with a pipe. Leaving the temple at 4.25, we descend the hill by the same route we came, but soon turning to the right along the western face of the mountain through the forest, we have a view to the left of a fine cultivated slope on the south-western side of Mount Fanaritiko, upon which are the villages of Vervitza and Lipistena, the latter containing 150 houses. The waters of this slope, after uniting, enter the Neda below Pavlitza. Linistena is about four miles distant from our road in a direct line.
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§ 2.016 At 5.15, in a little vale where the planes are just in leaf, and the oaks beginning to bud, we join the road from Tragoi to Andritzena at the point where the ridge is lowest and most practicable: here a stream descends to the glen below Tragoi. It seems to be the main branch, or at least the most distant tributary of the Lymax, of which river, Pausanias says, that a spring, pointed out to him in Mount Cotylium as such, was certainly not the origin, and that he did not think of inquiring where the sources were situated. We continue through a forest of planes and oaks mixed with shrubs, and approach the pointed summit of Fanaritiko, or the hill of Fanari, on which are the ruins of a castle; at length, leaving that height to the left, and passing between it and another summit, called Ai Elia (St. Elias), which overhangs Andritzena, I command a fine view of the vale of the Alpheius and adjacent country, on either side of the river from Andritzena to the sea, with the islands of Kefalonia and Zakytho in the distance. After a descent of half an hour, we arrive at 6.30 at Andritzena, whither I had sent my baggage and servants in the morning from Tragoi. Andritzena is beautifully situated in an elevated hollow under the summit of Ai Elia, at the head of a hilly, fertile, and well cultivated tract, which slopes gradually to the Alpheius.
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§ 2.017 A little higher up the mountain, and on the western side of a small ravine, watered by a rivulet which descends to the same recipient, stands the separate quarter of Apanokhora. There is another in the same direction, called Tjanalia, and a third, Gufoplo, on a summit towards Fanari. The four together contain about 500 houses. Andritzena itself is larger than the three other villages put together; and has a tolerable bazar. The staple article of external commerce is prinokokki, which is gathered from the kermes oak in the neighbouring mountains. The houses standing amidst trees on the side of a steep declivity rising above one another, give the town an imposing appearance at a distance. Fanari is similarly situated under the peaked summit, called Fanaritiko, or Zakkuka; the latter name is that of the ruined castle upon its summit. Fanari is two miles in a straight line to the north-west of Andritzena. It contains about 800 houses; the inhabitants, with the exception of a very few shop-keepers, servants, and cultivators of the soil, are entirely Turks, those of Andritzena all Christians.
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§ 2.018 May 8. — At 1.05, p. m. I set out from Andritzena for Karitena, having procured horses from Fanari, which is the head of the Kazasi — descend obliquely along the side of the mountain by a winding road, until, at 2.30, we enter a valley inclosed between the hill of Lavdha, half a mile on the left, and the mountain of Dhioforti, two miles on the right. A river from the south traverses the valley and joins the river of Andritzena between Lavdha and Andritzena. At 2.45, near the end of this valley, I quit the direct road, and, turning to the left, mount the steep and lofty hill of Lavdha, upon which are the remains of a small fortified Hellenic town, now known by the name of the castle of St. Helene: the walls inclosed all the summit of the hill, at one end of which there was a citadel forming, like that of Phigaleia, an inclosure near one side of the outer walls, but entirely separated from them. This citadel is about 150 yards in diameter, more circular than that of Phigaleia, and without any tower or keep. In it stood a temple, of which the lower parts of seven Doric columns of one foot eight inches in diameter, are still standing in a line in their original places. Here is also a very large quadrangular stone, with an excavation of the same form in it. The walls are of the most irregular species of the second order, and have suffered much from time and the exposed situation of the place.
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§ 2.019 There is a round tower near one corner of the citadel, which a Lavdhiote peasant tells me was once a windmill, but it seems rather to have been a signal tower in the line of communication between the castle of Karitena and that of Zakkuka, on the summit of Mount Fanaritiko, for those two buildings appear to have been nearly of the same period of the middle or lower ages. The hill forms an even slope to the northward and westward, and is covered with a fine turf: towards the eastern end it is bounded by a precipice of no great height, from the foot of which there is a steep descent to the Alpheius, which runs in a dark ravine below, and is distant from the citadel about 800 yards in a straight line. Midway stand two villages, both called Lavdha containing, together, about forty houses. Mount Dhioforti, a lofty round summit, which I believe to be the proper Lycaeum, presents itself directly before us to the south-east. From the right bank of the Alpheius, in the opposite direction, rises the mountain which contains the towns Dhimitzana and Zatuna. The two great ridges approach each other at Karitena, and form, from thence to near Andritzena, an αύλων, or narrow opening, at the bottom of which flows
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§ 2.020 the Alpheius in its passage from the upper plain, or that of which Megalopolis was the chief place, to the lower, in which Heraea was the principal town. To the east is seen the mountain of Alonistena; a little to the westward of north that of Sandamerio: Tzimbaru, a little to the left of Dhioforti. The wind blows strong and keen through the aulon, and my Messenian janissary is once more almost deprived of the power of moving. There is, indeed, a great difference between the maritime climate of the Peloponnesus and that of the Arcadian mountains. “Έ un aria troppo rigida,” observed to me the Ragusan consul at Mothoni, speaking of the interior of the peninsula. The average climate of Arcadia is in fact cooler, by several degrees, than that of the consul's native town, though the latter is situated so much farther north. In summer, I believe the sea-coast of the Morea to be more healthy than many of the close valleys of Arcadia; but the cool air of the hills, in particular situations, must in that season be a most agreeable and beneficial change from all the lower situations of the Peninsula. At 4.25 I rejoin the Karitena road near the place we quitted it, and cross the hills at the foot of Mount Dhioforti 5 these, like some of the slopes towards Andritzena, are covered with dwarf oaks about two feet high. At 5.30
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§ 2.021 arrive on the bank of a rapid stream running from the south, shaded with planes, and turning some mills; steep hills rise from either bank. It joins the Alpheius a little below Karitena. After following it for a short distance, I find, to my surprise, that it issues from the side of the mountain in a single body; the road to Karitena passing round the head of it. The village of Tragomano is one mile and a half to the right on the side of Dhioforti. We now cross the lower part of that mountain, which terminates to the left in precipices, divided only by the Alpheius from a similar termination of the steep hill of Karitena. To avoid this impracticable gorge, the road makes such a circuit in reaching Karitena, that its hill remains behind us as we descend into the plain to the southward of the town. We leave, a little on the left, the ruins of a mosque and a small village called Xero-Karitena, and cross the Alpheius by a bridge, which appears to be of the same date as the castle of Karitena. They were both probably built by one of the Frank princes of the Morea, in the thirteenth century. There is a small chapel of the Panaghia attached to one side of the bridge, intended as a sacred protection to it against the wintry floods. It takes near half an hour to ascend from the bridge to the town:
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§ 2.022 we do not arrive till 7 P.M. though the direct distance from Andritzena is not more than eight miles. Karitena is one of the most important military points in the Morea. The castle, which is now abandoned, occupies the summit of a high rock, extremely steep towards the Alpheius, and connected eastward with the mountain which lies between the adjacent part of the plain of the Alpheius, and the vale of Atzikolo; on the north and south the hill slopes more gradually, and on these sides the town is situated. The hill stands at the southern extremity of the Στενά, or straits, of the Alpheius, which, as I have already observed, separate the upper from the lower great valley of that river. The vilayeti of Karitena contains upwards of 100 villages, and extends to the northward as far as that of Kalavryta. Some of the villages are large, as Stemnitza, Zigovisti, Dhimitzana, Zatuna in the nearer hills northward of Karitena, and farther in the same direction, Alonistena, Vitina, Maguliana, Valtesiniko, Langadha, Vizitza, Vervitza: except the part of the Alpheian plain near Karitena, the whole district is mountainous, though in general fertile. It produces nearly equal quantities of wheat, barley, and maize; cheese, and butter are made in large quantities in the higher villages, and cotton, flax, and vines are grown in the lower valleys. Prinokokki is gathered in all the woody parts of the district. The pinaki of wheat weighs about sixty okes, that of kalambokki fifty-five, of barley forty-five. The town of Karitena is much depopulated of late; there now remain about 200 families, of which not more than twenty are Turkish: the emigrants have chiefly gone to the territory of Kara Osman Oglu, in Asia Minor, where they are subject only to the land-tax and kharatj, and are chiefly employed in cultivating the rich lands of Pergamum and Magnesia. The master of the house I lodge in, has within a year paid 300 piastres as his share of the impositions laid upon the town. The mukata of Karitena belongs to the same sister of the Sultan who has the Emlatika Khoria. Mistra and Argos, or the territories of the Atreidae, are the appanage of another sister of the Barbarian king.
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§ 2.023 May 9. At eight this morning, following the side of the mountain above the right bank of the Alpheius, I arrive in half an hour at the point where the river of Dhimitzana, or of Atzikolo as it is here more commonly called, unites with the Alpheius, or river of Karitena. The Atzikolo is a fine stream, wide, clear, and rapid. We proceed along the hill above its left bank, and at 9 cross it by a bridge; then, ascending the opposite hill, leave the monastery of Kalami at 9.20 on the right, situated on the brow of a precipice above the river. Half way down the same cliff I perceive the ruin of a more ancient monastery, and a church in a cavern in the cliff itself. On the side of the hill, which rises above the monastery, stands the village of Atzikolo, which we leave on the left, and then, crossing a height, arrive at the ruins of a small Arcadian polis, which occupied a level summit, bordered by precipices, on the right bank of the river: the city, I think, was Gortys, the river the Gortynius, otherwise called Lusius. [sketch plan]
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§ 2.025 The position is nearly in a direct line between Karitena and Dhimitzana, neither of which is visible. Stemnitza is seen on the face of a mountain to the north-east, and a little tower on one side of it, on a sharp peaked rock. On either side of the principal gate of Gortys the walls are a fine specimen of the polygonal or second order: the stones are accurately joined, and in good preservation. One of them is six feet eight inches long, three feet six inches high, and as much thick: in general, their contents are equal to cubes of two, three, and four feet. The entrance was strengthened by being placed in a reentering angle, thus the gate itself being at the end of a passage between two parallel walls or perhaps there was a gate at either end of the passage. The ancient town was nearly of the same size as that at Lavdha. On the south-western side of the town, I observe the remains of an artificial platform and some scattered fragments of white marble; it is probably the site of the temple of Aesculapius, described by Pausanias as having being built of Pentelic marble, and as containing statues, by Scopas, of Aesculapius and Hygieia.
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§ 2.026 It is mentioned by Cicero as being the sepulchre of one of the Aesculapii, of whom he reckoned three. Scopas had represented the Aesculapius of Gortys without a beard, and armed with a thorax and spear, which were said to have been dedicated by Alexander the Great: of the spear only the point remained, in the time of Pausanias. It is evident, from these distinctions, but especially from the materials of the building, which must have been brought with great labour from Athens to these Arcadian mountains, that the temple was one of the most remarkable in the Peloponnesus. In another passage (in the Prior Eliacs) where Pausanias describes the river Gortynius as flowing from Gortys, he shews the importance which he attached to the temple, by adding the words, “where stands the temple of Aesculapius.” As usual, however, he supplies no means of judging of its dimensions or structure, nor could I find any remains serving to indicate even its order of architecture. It happens, unfortunately, that buildings of white marble have
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§ 2.027 less chance of preservation than those of ordinary stone, as the material is in request for the making of lime and stucco, a circumstance which may account for the total disappearance of the Asclepieium of Gortys. — I return at noon to Karitena. Within the castle of Karitena I find the ruin of a long building, with a Gothic window and several large cisterns, the work probably of the Frank prince to whom the castle and its dependencies belonged. At 3.35 I leave Karitena for Sinanu: cross the bridge at 3.52 and proceed rapidly along the plain till 4.40, when I cross the river a second time, fording it to the right bank: it is here wide and shallow Between the two passages I passed the village of Mavria and then that of Kyparissia. Above Mavria, at the foot of the Lycaean range, there are said to be some remains of antiquity. Higher up are Karyes and Kurunios, belonging to the vilayeti of Karitena, and Povergo and Strabovo to that of Londari. Above Karyes rises the mountain called the Karyatiko: it is the highest point of the Lycaeum, except Dhioforti and Tetrazi; and seems to have been the summit of what Pausanias calls the Nomian mountains which comprehended apparently all the ridge connecting Dhioforti with Tetrazi. Farther to the south is the village Ysari, belonging to Fanari. At Kyparissia there are some appearances of an ancient site, and a brook, which we cross near it, is called Vathyrema, a name which contains some vestiges of that of the place Bathos mentioned by Pausanias. Proceeding at a moderate pace, at 5.06 we leave Vromosela half a mile on the right. One tufek, or musket-shot, above that village, according to the expression of my guide, the river of Davia joins that of Barbitza: the former is clearly the Helisson, the latter the Alpheius. At 5.30 we turn off along the bank of the Helisson, and crossing it near the theatre of Megalopolis, arrive at Sinanu at 5.50.
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§ 2.028 May 10. — Sinanu, from Sinan, a common Turkish name, contains about twenty Greek families and the pyrgo of the spahi, who is a Turk of Londari. When I asked one of the cottagers why he did not sow more corn in such a fertile soil — “Where are we to get seed?” was the answer. The Turk of the pyrgo unable, in consequence, to obtain his spahilik on the crops, torments the peasants with extraordinary extortions of every kind, and this fine plain, naturally one of the richest in Greece, remains, with the exception of a few spots round some
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§ 2.029 of the villages and Turkish tjiftliks, quite uncultivated. The decline of the culture and population of Arcadia dates from a very distant period. Strabo refers it, or at least the conversion of the corn lands into pasture, to the time of the foundation of Megalopolis, when many of the small towns were abandoned. It is probable, however, that the cultivation of this plain was improved by that event: while an opposite effect may have been produced in all the surrounding districts. So greatly had the agriculture of Arcadia declined in the time of Strabo, that it was then chiefly noted for its breed of horses and asses. It would seem, therefore, that although Megalopolis gave a momentary strength and importance to Arcadia, it assisted in the depopulation of the province, and itself flourished only for a short time. This “youngest of cities” soon fell into decrepitude, Sparta being still too powerful a neighbour, except in some conjunctures, when Megalopolis was fortunate in its alliances. Cleomenes plundered and partly destroyed the place about 150 years after its foundation and from this shock it probably never recovered, gradually declining, until, according to a comic poet
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§ 2.030 quoted by Strabo, the “great city was nothing more than a great desert” Its vast dimensions, more extensive, according to its native historian, than those of Sparta itself, and always disproportioned to its inhabitants served only to render its desolation the more remarkable. During the first two centuries of the Roman empire; when Greece and Asia enjoyed a degree of security to which they had long been strangers, and more happiness perhaps than they had known for several centuries, it cannot be doubted that Arcadia partook in the general improvement, and that Pausanias found this province in a condition far less wretched than that which Strabo has described Megalopolis itself, however, was in a more ruinous state than any of the other great cities of Greece, as appears, not less from the description which Pausanias has given of the several buildings, than from his general reflections in the thirty-third chapter of the Arcadics. Though the appearance of this noble basin might be rendered more agreeable by a certain degree of culture, desolation has not deprived it of its natural beauties, as seems to have happened in the other great Arcadian valley of
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§ 2.031 Tripolitza, which, having lost its three cities, its cultivation, and its forest Pelagus, (the latter a fine contrast, probably, to the rocky steeps on either side) is now an uninteresting monotonous level. The valley of Megalopolis, on the contrary, abounds in delightful scenery. The sides of the majestic mountains Karyatiko and Tetrazi, and the hills at the southern end of the plain beyond Londari, are covered with oaks, chestnuts, and other trees. The eastern range in its higher regions is more naked than the others, but the lower hills are clothed both with underwood and large trees, among which are forests of oaks, extending in some places into the plain, particularly a little to the southward of Megalopolis. The valley itself, varied with hillocks, undulated ground, and detached copses, refreshed with numerous rivulets, shaded by planes, and watered by a larger stream winding through the middle, may almost rival the plain of Sparta in picturesque beauty; to which it is inferior only in the grandeur of the mountains, and their magnificent contrasts with the other features of the Spartan valley. In the present sylvan and uncultivated state of the country around the site of Megalopolis, we have a scene more resembling an ideal Arcadia, than could have been presented, when there was a large city in the centre of the valley: and thus we have
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§ 2.032 another example of a resemblance between the Greece of the earliest ages of its history and that of the present day. The country is now clothed in all the beautiful verdure and flowery luxuriance of a Grecian spring. Though little remains of the Great City, except its mountain of a theatre, the position of the agora is sufficiently traceable, and the two together furnish some illustration of the description of the city by Pausanias. “The Helisson”, he says, “divides Megalopolis into two parts, like the canals at Cnidus and Mitylene.” “The agora was on the right bank, or northern side of the Helisson: opposite to it stood the theatre on the southern side of the river. In the agora there was an inclosure of stones, the space within which was sacred to Jupiter Lycaeus, and had no entrance, all its contents being exposed to public view, namely, two altars of the gods, two tables, two eagles, and a statue in stone of Pan Synoeis. Behind this inclosure there was a figure of Polybius, son of Lycortas, in relief, on a pillar: elegiac verses were inscribed on the pillar, stating that he had
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§ 2.033 wandered over every sea and land, had fought for the Romans, and had appeased their wrath against the Greeks. The council-house was to the left of this statue. In front of the temenus of Jupiter Lycaeus, stood the brazen statue of Apollo Epicurius, twelve feet high, which had been brought from Bassae by the Phigalenses to adorn Megalopolis. To the right of the Apollo there was a small statue of the Mother of the Gods; of her temple the columns only remained. Before it were some pedestals of statues, on one of which there was an elegy shewing that it once supported a statue of Diophanes, son of Diaeus, who was the first to unite all Peloponnesus in the Achaean league. The stoa called the Philippeium was so called in compliment to Philip, son of Amyntas; the temple of Mercury Acacesius, which adjoined to it, had been overthrown, and nothing of it was left but a lintel of stone. A smaller stoa, contiguous to the Philippeium, contained the Archives: these were six apartments, in one of which there was a statue of Diana Ephesia, and in another a brazen Pan, a cubit in height, surnamed Scoleitas, because the statue was brought from a hill of that name within the city, from which
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§ 2.034 issued a stream of water flowing to the Helisson. Behind the Archives stood a temple of Fortune, with a statue of stone five feet high. The agora contained also a stoa called Myropolis, built from the spoils of the Lacedaemonians under Acrotatus, when they were defeated by the Megalopolitae under Aristodemus. Another stoa in the agora was called the Aristandreium, because it was built by Aristandrus, a native citizen. Near it, eastward, stood a peripteral temple of Jupiter Soter, containing a statue of Jupiter seated on his throne, with Megalopolis standing on his right, and Diana Soteira on his left; they were of Pentelic stone, and made by the Athenians Cephisodotus and Xenophon. Adjoining to the Aristandreium, on the west, was the sacred inclosure of the Great Goddesses, as Ceres and Proserpine were called; the latter was named Soteira by the Arcadians (instead of Core, as in most other parts of Greece). Before the entrance were represented in low relief, on one side Diana, on the other Aesculapius and Hygieia. The statues of the Great Goddesses were fifteen feet high, that of Ceres was entirely of stone, the drapery of the Soteira was of wood. Before them stood statues of two young women in long
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§ 2.035 drapery bearing flowers in baskets, a small Hercules, and a table adorned with figures of the Hours, of Pan, and of Apollo in relief, and which supported statues of the nymphs, Neda, Anthracia, Hagno, Archiroe, and Myrtoessa, bearing appropriate symbols. The peribolus of the Great Goddesses contained also a temple of Jupiter Philius, whom Polycleitus of Argos, had represented in the character of Bacchus, with a cup in one hand, and a thyrsus in the other, distinguishing him as Jupiter only by an eagle on the thyrsus. Behind this temple there was a small grove of trees surrounded with a fence into which there was no admission. Before it stood statues of Ceres and her daughter, three feet high. The other contents of the sacred peribolus were a temple of Venus — a building containing the statues of four persons, who were supposed to have been the teachers of the mysteries to the Megalopolitae — a large temple in which the ceremony of the Great Goddesses was performed; and to the right of the latter a sanctuary of Core (Proserpine), containing a statue of marble eight feet high; men were admitted into this sanctuary only once a year, but women at all times.”
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§ 2.036 Before the entrance of the above-mentioned temple of Venus were some ancient wooden statues of Juno, Apollo, and the Muses, brought from Trapezus. Within it were a wooden Mercury, and an acrolithic statue of Venus Mechanitis, the works of Damophon. In another part of the inclosure of the Great Goddesses, there were six statues of deities, of that square form which Pausanias elsewhere tells us that the Arcadians particularly affected. “The Gymnasium adjoined the agora to the west. Behind the Philippeium were two small heights, on one of which stood the ruins of the temple of Minerva Polias, on the other those of Juno Teleia; at the foot of the latter was the spring of water, named Bathyllus, which flowed to the Helisson.” “On the southern side of the river, stood the theatre, in which there was a never-failing source of water. Near the theatre were foundations of the council chamber of the Ten Thousand Arcadians, called, from the person who founded it, the Thersilium; and near the latter, a private house formerly built by the Megalopolitae, for the King Alexander, son of Philip, before which stood a hermaic statue of Ammon, with the horns of a ram. Of a temple sacred to Apollo,
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§ 2.037 Hermes, and the Muses, there remained only a few foundations, together with a hermaic figure of Apollo, and a statue of one of the Muses. There remained, also, the pronaos and some ruins of a temple of Venus, and three statues of Venus, one called Urania, another Pandemusto the third, no epithet was given. Near this temple, there was an ancient altar of Mars. The Stadium, which contained a fountain sacred to Bacchus, was contiguous to the theatre on one side, and on the other, to a few remains of a temple of Bacchus. Of a temple of Hercules and Hermes, which stood near the Stadium, only the altar remained. In this division of the city, on a hill towards the east, stood the temple of Diana Agrotera, dedicated by Aristodemus; to its right was the temenus of Agrotera, containing a temple of Aesculapius with statues of Aesculapius and Hygieia, and a little below it, hermaic statues of the five gods, called the Ergatae, namely, Minerva Ergane, Apollo Agrieus, Hermes, Hercules, and Lucina. At the foot of the same hill, there was a temple of Aesculapius the Boy, with an upright statue of him, about a foot and a half high. In this temple there was an Apollo, seated on a throne, six feet in height, and some bones of one of the giants; near it a source of water flowed to the Helisson.”
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§ 2.038 “Just without the city, on the road towards Thocnia, stood the temple of Neptune Epoptas; of the statue the head only remained.” On the site of the agora, amidst numerous foundations and portions of columns, many of which are either standing in their original places or only fallen from their bases, I measured some Doric shafts of two feet eight inches in diameter Farther north is what appears to have been a quadrangle of columns in a double row, within a wall. The inner row, or those towards the middle of the quadrangle, were Ionic, two feet four inches in diameter, with filled flutings; the others were pure Doric, two feet seven inches in diameter. This quadrangle I take to have been the Gymnasium, though it is situated rather northward, than westward as Pausanias indicates, of that which appears to have been the central part of the agora. But the ancients were seldom very accurate as to the points of the compass. The distance of the ruins alluded to from the Helisson is not less than 300 yards, which shows the great extent of the public buildings in and around the agora. Proceeding from the agora, westward, along the current of the Helisson, I met with a rough mass of masonry on the bank, apparently the ruins of a bridge, and a little beyond it a small portion of a paved street, formed of a double row of long squared stones carefully wrought, and
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§ 2.039 lying in a direction which forms an acute angle with that of the river. A little beyond this pavement there are two brooks, joining the Helisson, and between them a barrow. Of the theatre there remain only a few fragments of the seats, and a part of the exterior wall of the cavea; the rest is an immense mass of earth. Between the front of the theatre and the river, I observed two parallel walls, which seem to have been a prolongation of the two sides of the proscenium as far as the river, thus apparently connecting the theatre with the agora, and forming of both one magnificent piazza, with the river running through it. Perhaps the foundations in front of the theatre may have belonged to the Thersiliura, a building which, though it may have been subservient to the uses of the council of Ten Thousand, could hardly have been employed for its actual assemblage, as such a multitude could only have been seated for purposes of business, in a theatre-shaped edifice. I could not find any appearance of the source of water in the theatre, nor could I discover any vestiges of the Stadium. As to the dimensions of the theatre, which Pausanias has described as the greatest in Greece, and
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§ 2.040 to which such dimensions were, perhaps, given chiefly for the purpose of accommodating the multitudinous Arcadian council — although it is too much ruined to admit of any detailed or accurate, measurements, it is sufficiently preserved to afford the means of forming some judgement of its original diameter, which I believe to have been about 480 feet, or from twenty-five to thirty feet greater than the diameter of the theatre of Sparta. It seems, moreover, to have been a greater effort of labour and expense than the theatres of Athens, Argos, Sparta, or any theatre in Greece, of which there exist any considerable remains, having had the advantage only of a slight rise in the ground, at the back of the structure, and having, with this exception, been raised, entirely by art, from the lowest level of the plain. I could not ascertain the position of the hill of Agrotera, at the foot of which there was a source of water, but in fact, with the exception of the theatre, the difference of level in every part of the site of Megalopolis is very slight; the land abounds too in sources of water, and it may easily be conceived, that the process of ruin in the city, or natural causes, may have altered the situation of the issues of some of those springs from the ground. It is very possible that many remains may lie hid among
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§ 2.041 the shrubs, which cover a great part of the site, and may thus have escaped my notice; and still more so, that the deep alluvial soil may conceal and preserve some of those works of art which Pausanias has described. One is curious to understand the reasons which induced so experienced a soldier as Epaminondas to choose the middle of the plain for the site of the new capital of Arcadia, such a position being very different from that of the generality of Grecian cities. An unfailing supply of water, which could not be intercepted, was probably one recommendation, but those advantages of a level country, of which a modern engineer can avail himself, so as to make a fortress in a plain almost as strong as any that is favoured by natural difficulties of ground, seem scarcely applicable to the ancient art of war. Nevertheless, one can hardly doubt that some such principles were acknowledged at this meridian period of Greek strategy, since we find the Mantinenses at the same time choosing a level situation for their new city, in preference to its old position upon a hill. In the village of Sinanu I found a marble inscribed with a few names, and a large ancient tile made of very fine earth, one foot ten inches square and two inches thick; both of them had been turned up by the plough. Coins are often
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§ 2.042 procured here in the same manner; those which were brought to me were chiefly of Megalopolis or of Arcadia. At Kassimi, two miles to the WNW of Sinanu, I found the trunk of a draped female figure of the human size. I observed also some vestiges of the walls of Megalopolis, as well as of a ditch, among the pasture land and bushes not far from Sinanu, which place being very little more than half a mile from the theatre, will give a circumference of three miles and a half, at the utmost, to the ancient city, if we suppose, as seems probable, that the theatre and agora were about the centre. These are much below the dimensions which Polybius ascribes to Megalopolis. At the end of forty minutes, the road from Sinanu to Londari crosses the main stream of the Alpheius, here called Kutufarina, from whence it gradually ascends for fifty minutes to Londari. The Londari Kazasi contains sixty villages in the Megalopolitis and adjacent part of Messenia, and extends south-westward as far as the foot of Mount Ithome. The Turks of the town of Londari own the greater part of the land, which, though naturally not less fertile than the generality of the interior of the Morea, is, in consequence of their poverty, idleness, and extortion, in a wretched state of cultivation.
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§ 2.043 Many Greeks have lately removed from this district to Nisi. There are about 250 Turkish and forty Greek houses in the town, which stands on the side of a long acclivity rising to a summit clothed with oaks, which is connected southwards with Mount Xerovuni, the northern great summit of the Taygetic range. The branch which terminates at Londari is separated to the eastward by the valley of the main stream of the Alpheius, from the summits now called Tzimbaru and Khelmos, and to the westward by another tributary of the same river from the mountains Makryplai and Elenitza. On the northern side of the town are the remains of a castle on a commanding height; it contains some ruined churches and a Turkish mosque, which was formerly a large Greek church; both the castle and the churches are constructions of the time of the lower empire. Londari probably attained to importance, and received its present name in the same ages which gave rise to Mistra, Tripolitza, and several other modern Peloponnesian towns, which owed their existence, or at least their augmentation, to the strength of their position in times of insecurity. I do not however find the name of Londari in the Byzantine history, until after the conquest of Constantinople, when it figures as one of the chief places of the Morea in the narratives of Chalcocondylas and Phranza. One cannot but suppose that such an advantageous position was the site of one of the numerous small poleis of ancient Arcadia, though Pausanias affords no support to this opinion, nor have I been able to find any Hellenic remains at Londari. The principal place in this vicinity in the middle ages of ancient Greece appears to have been at Satnara, a village on the left bank of the Xerilo-potamo, or above-mentioned western branch of the Alpheius, not much more than a mile distant from Londari. Here are the remains of the walls of a Hellenic city, which appears from Xenophon and Pausanias to have been Cromnus, or Cromi.
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§ 2.044 May 11. — From Londari to Tripolitza. I set out at 6.15, and in leaving the town, see the traces of chariot wheels in the rocks. After having crossed the Kutufarina, we enter a forest of oaks not very thickly planted; they extend to the right as far as Mount Khelmos, an insulated mountain of no great height, distant about five miles, standing about midway between Xerovuni and Tzimbaru. Having arrived at the end of the forest, at 7.40, we begin, at 8, to ascend Mount Tzimbaru, leaving Rapsomati considerably on the left and Gardhiki on the right. My route from Arkadhia to Tripolitza on the 5th March, passed on the other side of Rapsomati. Gardhiki, which Chalcocondylas writes Καρδικίη, was a place of some importance when it was taken by Mahomet the Second in the year 1460. At 8.30 pass the ruins of the village of Anemodhuri on the summit of the ridge of Tzimbaru, the highest point of which remains half a mile on the right, and is one of the most conspicuous objects in the centre of the Morea. At 8.50, entering the plain of Frangovrysi, Papari is in the plain on the right, near Mount Tzimbaru, and Alika at the foot of the mountain on the left; this is perhaps the ancient Alycaea, one of the old Arcadian towns which contributed to people Megalopolis. At 9.05 we halt five minutes at the head of a causeway of stone which crosses the western end of a large marsh. In coming from Arkadhia I left this marsh entirely on the right; it occupies all the central part of the plain, and extends to the rock at the foot of Mount Tzimbaru. At the south-eastern end of the plain I observe a peaked hill with a ruined church on the summit, behind which there is said to be a valley, and a small stream flowing to the Vasilipotamo. The marsh is chiefly formed by the stream which originates in the spring of Frangovrysi and the others near it. The river Gdhani
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§ 2.046 flows out of the marsh and passes into the plain of Megalopolis, through the deep rocky gorge on the northern side of Mount Tzimbaru, which was on my right, on the 5th of March, as I ascended the heights from Rapsomati. After crossing the marsh we proceed along the banks of the rivulet of Frangovrysi, which turns some mills, and at 9.40 join the road from Arkadhia to Tripolitza at the foot of the height, upon which are the Hellenic remains already described, undoubtedly those of Asea. In the marshy plain, at the foot of the hill, I observe the foundations of a round tower, together with those of a piece of curved wall, within which the tower stood. The ruins are called Zurlomylo, a name first applied probably to the round tower. At 9.55 we arrive at the Khan of Frangovrysi, and halt there five minutes. The neighbouring spring which gives name to the Khan is joined by the waters of another copious source, which issues near the foot of the opposite mountain one third of a mile distant, and afterwards by those of a third under the Paleokastro. The united stream turns the mills which I passed in approaching Frangovrysi. The Khan stands at the foot of a rocky height, which is separated from that of the Paleokastro by a narrow valley, branching up near a mile towards the mountains: there is another similar valley after passing the Khan. Our road follows the latter, and at 10.30 begins to ascend the hills which separate the valley of Asea from that of Pallantium, leaving on the right the rocky summit now called Kravari, and anciently Boreium. At 11.25 we enter the vale of Pallantium, leaving the inundation of the Taki at the foot of Mount Boreium on the right. It is as plentiful as when I saw it last, and fills up all the space between that mountain and the rocky ridge, on which stand the villages of Birbati and Thana, and which is continued quite to Tripolitza. The castle of Tripolitza may be considered the extreme point of it. The Manthuric plain of Pausanias is evidently that part of the Tegeatic plain which surrounds the Taki. We leave on the right Birbati, and then Thana, each about two miles distant, and Boleta on the left half a mile, gradually approaching the ridge as the plain narrows, until, at 12.05, having arrived at the end of the valley, we cross the ridge and enter Tripolitza at 12.35.
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§ 2.047 May 12 — 19. — I find a white marble column hollowed out, and serving for a horse-trough at a well, one mile from the gate of Tripolitza on the Anapli road. Its dimensions being precisely the same as those of the two columns in the mosques of the city, it is evident that they all belonged to the same colonnade at Tegea; I was told at Piali that fifteen similar columns had been carried away from the same excavation at that place. In the basement of one of the mosques of Tripolitza I observe a marble, on which is inscribed the name of Lucius Mummius, the celebrated conqueror of Corinth: spelt Λευκιο Μομμ- the remainder of the name wanting. The marble probably came from Tegea, as well as another which I found in the merchants okkal; it is a child's sarcophagus, on which are the letters ΠΟΛΙΣ ΤΕ... the remainder of the word Tegea, or Tegeaton being broken off. The inscription of Mummius serves to shew the form of letters used about the year 145 B.C. One afternoon I rode to Thana. Though the place seems to have had nothing to recommend it to the ancients for the site of a town, there are many fragments of buildings and of ancient pottery around the village, and I found two broken inscriptions, one in a church in the village, the other at a small distance from it in a church of St. Euphemius. The latter records the erection of a bath and stoa, and mentions the name of Hadrian with the epithet of Panellenius. During my absence from Tripolitza, the Pasha has assembled all the voivodas, agas, and hodja-bashis, upon the subject of a firmahn of the Porte, ordering a reinforcement of troops to the Morea, in consequence of the alarm respecting the French. The firmahn directed that they should be fed and paid by the Morea: 600 men, chiefly Albanians, arrived from Rumili, whose leaders required twelve piastres, about sixteen shillings, a month for each soldier. The Pasha would only consent to eight; at length it was agreed in council that they should be dismissed with fifteen purses, and that the Pasha should represent that the peninsula was unable to support them, on account of the failure of the last harvest — he expecting in return that the assembly should unite in a representation to the Porte, laudatory of his conduct, and recommending the renewal of his Pashalik for another year. The Spahis who came from Rumili were retained, because they are entitled to provisions only, but there can be little doubt that they will soon return home without waiting for permission. Such is the mode in which the Turks prepare for war. Another firmahn directs that no Frenchman shall be allowed to land from a ship of war. One of the chief landed proprietors of the Morea is Arnaut Oglu of Tripolitza, who owns 300 tjiftliks. Bekir Bey, brother of Nuri Bey
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§ 2.050 of Corinth, has 500, the gross produce of which may be worth 1000 purses, or 30,000 L. sterling a-year. The gardens attached to the houses of Tripolitza. are chiefly planted with mulberry-trees, from which about 2000 okes of silk are made every year. There is not a single tree or garden outside the walls, and the vegetables brought to market are chiefly from Argos or Nisi, though the climate would suit admirably any of our potherbs and even potatoes. An idea prevails here, which I have heard repeated in several parts of the Morea, that the swallows come in the spring from Africa on the backs of the cranes. A person of good credit has assured me, that he has seen a crane light upon a ship at sea with swallows on its back. The storks arrive in the Morea at the same time as the cranes, but are not swallow carriers, whether from want of charity, or want of strength, I cannot learn.
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§ 2.051 CHAPTER XIII ARCADIA. May 20. — Quitting Tripolitza, at 4.10 p.m., by the Karitena road, I enter the pass of Mount Maenalus, or Maenalium, at the back of the town; — at 4.25 see tracks of chariot wheels in the rocks. At 4.50, in the middle of the mountain, leave the Karitena road to the left; at the summit of the ridge look down upon the vale of Davia, and the opposite range of mountains, which extend to the plain of Megalopolis. On the left are Sylimna, and the other places which I visited March 16. Sylimna, perhaps, stands on the site of Sumatia. Descending the hill, we turn to the right under Apanokhrepa, and the bottom leave a pyrgo and zevgalatia at the head of a little bay at the foot of the steep. It is the same mentioned March 16. We then pass along the foot of Mount Maenalium, ascending
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§ 2.052 the valley of Davia, and leaving four or five miles on the left the Stena, through which the Helisson passes, between two steep fir-clad mountains, into the plain of Megalopolis. In some part of the valley towards those passes, the site of Lycoa might probably be recognized. At 5.50 we leave Davia a little on the right, on the rise of Maenalium, consisting of twelve poor huts. The town of Maenalus stood probably higher up the mountain, at the foot of the highest summit, which is now called Aidin. On the opposite side of the Helisson, a rocky projection of the hills which border that side of the valley reaches nearly to the river side: the summit is encircled by remains of Hellenic walls, of which I observe a handsome piece on the part of the hill overlooking the river. This is doubtless the position of Dipaea, which Pausanias describes as a small city of the Maenalia on the banks of the Helisson. It was famous for a battle fought here about the year 470 B.C., between the Lacedaemonians and all the Arcadians, except the Mantinenses. In the latter ages of the Greek empire, Davia was in the
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§ 2.053 possession of the Albanians, of whom there were many settlements at that time in the peninsula. Those of Lalla and Bardhunia are probably the remains of them, though I do not find either of the names in the Byzantine historians. We continue to ride along the foot of the mountain, the nearest heights of which are covered with firs, and leave the Helisson flowing from a narrow gorge on the left, in which direction, on the side of the mountain rising opposite to the Maenalium to the west, there is a little cultivation around the village of Piana. At 6.10 cross a torrent flowing from Maenalium towards the Helisson. At 6.27 ascend the hills which terminate the vale of Dipaea, and connect Maenalium with the mountains which extend south-westward to Karitena. All the highest summits of the Maenalian ridge are covered with large firs. At 6.40 we enter upon an elevated valley, in which are corn-fields mixed with firs. At 7.20 cross a stream; at 7.30 another; at 7.35 arrive at Alonistena: the baggage at 8.15. The first of the two streams just mentioned, rises in the mountain on the right, a bare white rock, on which are a few pines near the top, and farther down a forest of the same trees. The second stream issues from a copious
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§ 2.054 fountain in the village of Alonistena. The source of the western branch is in the village of Piana. As the spring of Alonistena is the principal source of the river, the village should stand, according to Pausanias, on the site of the town Helisson, though I cannot find any remains of antiquity here, nor has it any of the usual attributes of an ancient site. The modern appellation is perhaps one of those corruptions in which the name has assumed a new meaning, while preserving a similarity in sound to the ancient word. Though Alonistena means the pass of the threshing-floor, it seems very possible that it may have been derived originally from Helisson, in the usual Romaic form of the accusative case. It is by no means unlikely also that the source at Alonistena is the emissory of the katavothra of the Ophis, or river of Mantineia. The mountain behind the village is one of the highest summits of the Maenalian ridge, and is contiguous northward to Mount Aidin. Between it and another which runs northward, and then eastward, towards Tara, there is a pass leading from Alonistena to Levidhi. Alonistena contains about seventy houses, and is in the district of Karitena, which town is reckoned eight hours distant. It is prettily situated on either side of the ravine, at the bottom of which the river issues, and which is closed around by steep mountains covered with firs. The situation of the village being very lofty, the natives enjoy a fine air, and have none of those diseases which torment the inhabitants of the plains in the summer and autumn. In return, they often have three feet of snow upon the ground in the winter. The land produces a small quantity of wheat, which is very good; but sheep and their produce are the principal riches of the place: no benefit is derived from the firs which surround it, except firewood. I am lodged in the house of the protogheros; the best, that of a Kyr Dhimitri being pre-occupied by certain Lalliote armatoli, hired by the vilayeti of Karitena to clear the country of robbers, and who are living at free cost upon the village.
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§ 2.055 May 21. At 5.50 A.M. we ascend the ravine behind the village, through a forest of firs between the rocky summit of the Maenalian range on the right, and a lower woody mountain on the left; — at 6.20 arrive on the crest of the ridge which connects the two mountains; it commands a view of the vale of Alonistena and the range of hills on each side of it, with Mount Malevo (of St. Peter's) in the distance. In the opposite direction is seen the vale of Vitina, and beyond it, to the north-westward, a high ridge, upon the face of which is the village of Maguliana, containing about seventy houses, distant four or five miles from us, in a straight line. At the crest of the pass the road to Vitina and Kalavryta separates from that leading to Dhimitzana, the former descending along the side of the mountain to the right, the latter along the range to the left. We pursue the latter, and in the descent perceive to the north the town of Vitina, at a direct distance of about three miles, and, in the same direction, the plain and village of Tara, with a lofty mountain at the back of it, eight or ten miles distant. Vitina is divided into two parts: the larger stands on a height, at the back of which a river runs through a deep rocky ravine, and takes its course towards the plain of Tara. This river is formed by four streams; the southernmost descends from Nimnitza, the second from Pyrgo, both of which are small villages on the mountain bordering the valley to the south-west; the third is from Maguliana, on the mountain which borders the valley to the north-west; and the fourth from the vicinity of a small village to the north of Maguliana.
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§ 2.057 Vitina is the largest town in this part of Arcadia, and has a schoolmaster, who teaches Hellenic. After a halt of twenty minutes for the baggage under Nimnitza, we cross, at 7.20, the stream from that village, and at 7.30 arrive at the walls of an ancient city on a height, below Pyrgo, otherwise called Pyrgako, which is prettily situated on the side of the mountain. At 7.35 arrive at another ancient wall built along the bank of the rivulet which descends from Pyrgo, and joins that from Nimnitza a little below the ruin. The walls were of the second order, but very little of them remains. If they belonged, as I have little doubt, to Methydrium, they probably extended considerably farther to the northward, as far perhaps as the junction of the rivulet of Maguliana with the united stream from Pyrgo and Nimnitza; for Methydrium was one of the most important towns in Arcadia. After a few minutes' delay, we proceed over the roots of the Nimnitza mountain along the brook which rises near Maguliana, and at 8 arrive at the foundations of an ancient building thirty feet long and fifteen broad. Two minutes farther I perceive other ancient wrought stones, brought probably from the same building, now mixed with many rude masses, and forming a modern fence.
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§ 2.058 They seem to be the remains of a temple, perhaps that of Neptune Hippius; for though Pausanias says that this temple was in Methydrium, these words do not absolutely require, according to his mode of expressing himself, as exemplified on other occasions, that the temple was within the walls of the city: indeed, as he adds that the temple was on the Mylaon, it was more probably without the city walls. On this supposition the river of Maguliana was the Mylaon. It is doubtful which of the streams descending from Pyrgo and Nimnitza was the Molottus, and which the Maloetas; or, rather, there is reason to suppose that one of these names is an error in the text of Pausanias for the other, and that he only meant to speak of one river besides the Mylaon. If the Mylaon was the river of Maguliana, it will follow that the mountain above Pyrgo and Nimnitza was that which Pausanias describes as being above the Molottus, and as being called Thaumasium, though I cannot confirm it by any tidings of the cave of Rhea. It must
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§ 2.059 be allowed that one part of the description of Methydrium by Pausanias, does not very well agree with the position of these ruins. He says that it was built by Orchomenus on a lofty hill between the two rivers; whereas it was rather surrounded with mountains than built upon one: the rivers, however, leave little doubt of the identity; and the elevation of the place above the level of the sea must be very considerable, as it is so near to some of the most distant sources of the Alpheius; in this sense, therefore, it was built upon a mountain. Continuing to ascend the rivulet of Maguliana, we pass, at 8.15, over the traces of wheels in the rocks; at 8.16 leave the road to Maguliana, as well as the rivulet, to the right. Ascend till 8.22, when, arriving at the highest part of the pass between the mountains of Nimnitza and Maguliana, we leave on the left a small plain, at the foot of the fir-clad heights of the farmer range. This plain gives rise to a rivulet which runs towards Dhimitzana; the pass therefore separates the waters of the Ladon from those of the Gortynius. The rivulet enters a ravine, and we follow the steep and rocky side of the hill which rises from its right bank. At 9, in a small plain belonging to Dhimitzana, it is joined by another torrent from
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§ 2.060 the mountain on the right: it is now much increased in size, and a canal is diverted from it to turn some mills. The plain is marshy, and the land prepared for kalambokki: at 9.30, at the end of the plain we are saluted by a heavy shower of rain and a strong cold wind directly in our faces: soon enter a pass through which the river, now nearly as large as at Atzikolo, is precipitated over a rocky bed between two steep mountains. Descending along the side of that which overhangs its right bank, we arrive in half an hour in a narrow vale, from whence the town of Dhimitzana is visible on the opposite side of the river, standing on the summit of a high ridge, and surrounded on all sides by steep and lofty mountains. At 10.15 cross the bridge of Dhimitzana, and, immediately passing between two high perpendicular rocks, separated by an opening of only six or eight feet, we mount the hill, and arrive in the town at 10.45. When the Tartar inquires for the hodja-bashi, “We are all hodja-bashis”, is the reply; soon alarmed, however, by the oaths of the Turk, or not apprehensive of any ill treatment from an Englishman, they find us a good konak, as well as lodging for the horses. In the afternoon I visit the school of Dhimitzana, the most renowned in the Morea, and
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§ 2.061 which probably existed before the Turkish conquest. I find the dhaskalo, or master in his library, which contains some valuable editions of the classics, many of Aldus, and numerous theological works, but no manuscripts. At present the school has few disciples, and those who learn ancient Greek read little more than the Fathers of the Greek Church, and Lucian, which is generally the first book put into their hands by the master. I have remarked this practice at other places; it had its rise, perhaps, in the early ages of Christianity, for the sake of the ridicule which the author throws on the Pagan deities. The school of Dhimitzana, though still considered the best in the Morea, has much declined of late. With the increasing misery and depopulation of the Peninsula, the pursuit of letters has diminished in proportion. The study of Hellenic, though so easy to those who have more than half learned it with their mother tongue, is discouraged because it leads to nothing: meantime smaller schools have been established at Mistra, Argos, Vitina, and Kalavryta, in which is taught that mere smattering of the ancient language which is thought sufficient for boys intended for the Church. The poor didascalus complains piteously
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§ 2.062 of these changes from bad to worse, the effect of which is, that his means of existence fall off, and that he is at a loss to find any person who really esteems his occupation, or with whom he can entertain a conversation on the subjects which interest him. He seems a sensible, pleasant character, with a tolerable knowledge of the ancient authors, and a good memory; but, as usual among the modern Greeks, he is quite devoid of sound criticism, and scarcely attempts to form a judgement for himself of the authors whom he reads. He persists in maintaining that Dhimitzana is the ancient Psophis, that the mountain of Stemnitza, or, as it is sometimes called, Klinitza, is Lampeia, and that the river is the Erymanthus. It is in vain that I turn to Pausanias, and endeavour to shew him that those places must have been some thirty miles distant from hence. He produces Meletius, though he acknowledges him to be full of errors, in support of the tradition which he received from his predecessor in the school, and which the people of Dhimitzana have been so long accustomed to, that they will probably adhere to it as long as Greece remains in its present state of darkness. The dhaskalo accompanies me to the bishop,
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§ 2.063 an ignorant monk from Cyprus, who lives in the eastern part of the town, on a ridge branching towards Zygovisti. He then conducts me to the other parts of the town, and we make the circuit of it as far as a rocky summit overhanging the river, which form a semicircle around the precipitous peninsula. All round the crest of the ridge occupied by the town are the remains of a Hellenic wall, some parts of which are intermixed with the yards, and walls, and foundations of the private houses: in some places there are several courses of the masonry remaining, which is partly of the third order, but contains also some fine massy pieces of the polygonal kind. If Atzikolo was Gortys, and there is any truth in Pausanias, these must be the ruins of Teuthis. There are some Hellenic foundations among the vineyards on the slope of the mountain, shewing this slope to have been a part of the ancient city. On the other hand, the portion of the modern town lying on the ridge to the eastward, seems to have been excluded from the ancient inclosure. The walls traceable round the modern town are probably those of the acropolis only. The situation of Dhimitzana is cool, healthy, and extremely beautiful. To the south it commands a view of the western part of the plain
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§ 2.064 of Megalopolis and the mountains behind Londari. I am informed that the river which encircles the hill is a mere torrent which fails in the summer, and that the permanent source of the Gortynius is a great kefaloyrysi, or spring, at the foot of the mountain of Stemnitza. The situation of the place, the rocky streets, or rather narrow passages between the houses, and the ancient remains, forming a part of some of the modern walls, remind me of Khimara; but the people here have more concord among themselves, and are far less uncivilized. The Mukata of Dhimitzana and its dependent villages, of which Zygovisti and Stemnitza are the chief, belongs to Osman, one of the twelve hodja-khans of Constantinople: he holds them on condition of paying three purses to a certain mosque in Constantinople, and four to the Porte for the kharatj. Osman's agent receives twelve purses from Hassan Bey of Tripolitza, brother of Ali Effendi: the hodja-bashi and primates of Dhimitzana rent it of Hassan Bey for thirteen purses this year, and generally for more. The dhekatia on the cultivators is one in seven: the proprietors of the land are all Greeks. In the town there are 300 families all Greek.
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§ 2.065 May 22. — This morning, at 5.50, I begin to descend from Dhimitzana, and passing through the vineyards by a steep rugged zigzag path, arrive at 6.10 at the river, which we cross by a bridge just below a place where the water descends fifty feet in a distance of as many yards, tumbling over large masses of rock between lofty precipices hung with shrubs; the hill and town of Dhimitzana appear above this fine foreground in the most picturesque manner. We ascend the opposite hill, which is still more steep and lofty than that of Dhimitzana, and just under the brow arrive at the large village of Zatuna, situated in a climate which is so far behind that of the plain, that the figs and mulberries are only coming into leaf. There are about 150 houses, many of which are large and have gardens of mulberry and walnut mixed with cypress, and lefka, or white poplar. I observe several shops of artisans, and a manufacture for tanning and dyeing leather. We halt ten minutes at the highest part of the village, and then, proceeding under the brow of the mountain, leave to the left, at 7.10, the road to Karitena, which town is distant four hours. At 7.15, on the summit of the pass, we became involved in a thick fog. The western side of the mountain is barren, and little cultivated; at 8 the small village of Zerzova is on the left; here
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§ 2.066 the fog clears away and discovers a grand prospect of the opposite mountains of Fanari, and the fine slopes on either side of the lower vale of the Alpheius. Andritzena and Fanari are both hid by the hills in front of them. On the slope of those below Andritzena, across the hollow of the Alpheius, I see the village of Matesh, two miles to the north-westward of Lavdha. The river of Andritzena, which is called Servata, joins the Alpheius a little below Matesh. At 8.15 we halt ten minutes; on the left I perceive, at a distance of two or three miles to the south-west, an ancient Greek ruin with walls of the third order: it occupies the summit of a woody hill overhanging the right bank of the Alpheius, opposite to and a little below Matesh. It is called the Castle of Leodhoro, or, more vulgarly, Lodhoro, and is said to have been built by a lord of that name who owned all the adjacent country, which from him was called Leodhora. This may be a true account of a part of its history; and a castle of the middle ages may have been added to the Hellenic walls: but these belong, in all probability, to Melaeneae, which Pausanias and the Peutinger Table place hereabouts, on the road from Heraea to Megalopolis. Pausanias says, that in
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§ 2.067 his time Melaenes was deserted and inundated with water; it would seem, therefore, that the town was on the river side, and that the remains which I see are those of the citadel only. They are about due north of the Castle of St. Helen at Lavdha, which is also in sight. The sides of the hills on the right as far as Lalla, are rich, well wooded, and abound in corn. After halting ten minutes, we continue to descend, and at 8.45 cross a stream shaded with planes, and flowing from right to left towards the Alpheius. It is probably the Buphagus, at the sources of which was Buphagium. I am told that it is dry in summer. We continue to descend through fields of corn in ear, intermixed with wild pear trees, and natural copses of a great variety of shrubs, and at 10.05 arrive at the Alpheius just where it emerges from the straits of Karitena and Lavdha into the lower valley or champaign country, of which the chief town was Heraea. Throughout this part of its course, and indeed as far as the sea, there is a narrow level on either bank, inundated in winter, and planted with maize in summer; the river is wide and shallow, and its banks produce a great number of large plane trees. After crossing it, we ascend the
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§ 2.068 cultivated slope of Fanari: at 11.20 pass along the side of a mountain overhanging a ravine to the right, which is formed on the opposite side by a hill, crowned by the walls of a Hellenic fortress, now called the Castle of Nerovitza. From thence we descend into a little plain situated at the foot of the mountain of Fanari, and watered by the stream, which, after having half-encircled the hill of Nerovitza, descends from thence to the Alpheius. Having crossed this plain and stream, we ascend Mount Fanaritiko, and at 12.15 arrive at Fanari. This town, which is almost entirely inhabited by Turks, stands in an elevated situation between two high peaks, on the south-eastern of which, towards Andritzena, are the remains of a castle of the Lower Empire, called Zakkuka. From the two peaks descend two streams, which are conducted in numerous artificial rills to the gardens, houses, mills, and public fountains of the town, which covers a large space of ground. The gardens of fruit trees surrounding the houses, and some fine plane trees in the open spaces near the mosques, as well as along the course of the two brooks, give the whole a beautiful appearance. The air is pure, and is said to be cool even in the midst of summer. I am visited by the Greek Hodja Bashi of Andritzena, Papa Alexi Ikonomu, who assists the Turkish voivoda of Fanari in transacting the business of the vilayeti, and has, in fact, the principal direction of it. There are five or six mosques in Fanari, and three or four hundred houses.
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§ 2.069 May 23. Pass the morning in taking geodaesical observations on the summit of Zakkuka, the highest or south-eastern peak of the Fanaritiko, or mountain of Fanari. Zakkuka, it seems, was the name of a castle which stood upon the peak. It is an hour's ride thither from Fanari, passing through the town from the lower part of it, and then up the hill by a zigzag path. The view may be said to comprehend all the Morea except Achaea, the northeastern part of Arcadia, and the extremities of Argolis and Laconia. To the north is seen the whole range of Olonos, and a little more westward, at the foot of that mountain, the Eleian hills, with the hill of Sandamerio and Kefalonia rising above them. To the right of Olonos, the two other great mountains, Khelmos and Zyria close the view; within which are seen all the secondary Arcadian summits, from the range of Erymanthus to that of Maenalus, both included. Still nearer, are the mountains and hills which inclose the vale of the Alpheius on the north-east, forming a chain from the valley of the Ladon to Mount Tzimbaru, in face of Londari.
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§ 2.070 Still more distant than the Maenalian summits are seen Turniki and Partheni, Mount Malevo of St. Peter's ( Parnon ), and then two other remarkable peaks in the same great ridge which occupies all the eastern side of Laconia; over its southern extremity I can clearly recognize the pointed hill of Beziane, near the head of the Laconic Gulf. Mount Taygetum forms a noble object in the south-east, overlooking the lower summits near Mistra and in Mani. The plain and gulf of Messene, Koroni, Mounts Lykodhemo and Kondovuni, and the paralia between Navarin and Arkadhia, fill up the prospect to the right of Taygetum, in which direction the nearer objects are the Lycaean mountains, with their valleys and cultivated slopes. The latter range forms, together with the Triphylian mountains, one distinct body, bounded by the paralia of Triphylia on the west, by the pass of Kokhla and the plain of Messene on the south, by the plain of Megalopolis and the valleys of the lower Alpheius on the east and north. Of the summits of this division of the Peloponnesian mountains, Tetrazi has the appearance, perhaps from its pointed shape, of being the highest; that upon which I stand seems nearly equal in height with the others, namely, Karyatiko, Dhioiftrti, and the mountains of Alvena and
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§ 2.071 Smerna, anciently called Minthe and Lapithus. The Fanaritiko forms the connecting link between Lycaeum and those two summits, and Lapithus terminates the range at Khaiaffa, and towards the mouth of the Alpheius. To the right of the latter mountain are seen the plain of Pyrgo, Cape Katakolo, and all the sea shore of the JEleia between that cape and Kastro Tornese, with Zakytho in the distance. The most beautiful part of this extensive prospect is to the northward, where the fine champaign slope presents itself to view, which extends five or six miles on both sides of the Alpheius, and in the middle of which stands the town of Lalla, in the highest part of the elevated country to the north-east of Olympia. The large houses of the three brothers, Seid, Mustafa, and Hassan, and of the son-in-law of one of them, Ali Fermaki, are very conspicuous objects. The castle of Zakkuka is probably of Frank construction: there are remains of a round tower on the summit of the peak, and of a few houses on the slope. Stunted oaks are scattered over the highest parts of the hill, and among them are some shepherds tending their flocks. This afternoon I visit the Hellenic remains called the Castle of Nerovitza, which lay on
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§ 2.072 our right yesterday as we approached Fanari. At two-thirds of the distance thither I observe the foundations of an ancient wall, but too distant from Nerovitza to have been a part of the city which stood there. The hill of Nerovitza is surrounded on the eastern and partly on the northern and southern sides by the torrent of Fanari. It has a tabular summit about 300 yards [sketch] long in the direction of east and west, 100 yards broad, and surrounded by remains of Hellenic walls. At the south-eastern angle, a part rather higher than the rest formed a keep to this fortress; it was about seventy yards
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§ 2.073 long, and half as much broad. The entrance appears to have been in the middle of the eastern wall, between two square towers, of which that to the left only now remains. Beyond this tower, in the same direction and just below the eastern wall of the keep, [sketch map] a lower terrace still retains some foundations of a temple, together with portions of the shafts of columns not fluted, two feet two inches in diameter. There are remains of another temple, with some fragments of columns of the same dimensions, towards the western extremity of the outer fortress near the brow of the height. The whole summit is carpeted with a fine close turf, as usual on the Arcadian hills, where the atmosphere is generally sufficiently moist, even in summer, to maintain the verdure and to furnish an excellent pasture for sheep. I descend from the hill on the northern side through some fields of wheat full grown, but quite green; in the midst of which I find some large flat stones accurately cut, which apparently formed part of a ceiling. A little farther on is a source of water. From thence, after winding round the eastern side of
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§ 2.074 the hill to regain the road to Fanari, I find the foundations of one of the gates of the lower city. This part of the fortification was flanked with towers, of which there are the remains of two or three, together with considerable pieces of the intermediate walls on the western side, where the ground is very rocky and overgrown with bushes. The masonry is in general of the second order, and has suffered much from time and the exposed situation. Pausanias and Polybius accord in proving that these are the ruins of Aliphera. The place is so well described by Polybius, and the topography of the surrounding country so well illustrated by a comparison of the two authors, that I shall here subjoin extracts both from the description of the Greek traveller, and the narrative of the historian. “The river Tuthoa ”, says Pausanias, “flows into the Ladon at the boundary of the Thelpusii and Heraeenses, which the Arcadians call Pedium. The Ladon joins the Alpheius at the island of Crows. The founder of the Heraeenses was Heraeeus, son of Lycaon. The city lies on the right bank of the Alpheius, the greater part on a gently-rising ground, the remainder on the bank of the river,
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§ 2.075 where are baths and walks of myrtle and other cultivated trees. Here are two temples of Bacchus, one surnamed Polites, the other Axites: attached to them is a building in which the orgies of Bacchus are celebrated. In Heraea there is likewise a temple of Pan, who, to the Arcadians, is a native deity. Of the temple of Juno some columns and other ruins only are left. Proceeding into the Eleia from Heraea, at the end of about fifteen stades you will cross the Ladon, from whence to the Erymanthus there are twenty stades. According to the Arcadians, the Erymanthus is the boundary of Heraea towards the Eleia; but the Eleians say that their limits are at the tomb of Coroebus, upon which there is an epigram, attesting that he was the first who conquered at Olympia, and that he was buried on the confines of the Eleia.” “ Aliphera is a small city; many of the inhabitants of which abandoned it when the Arcadians collected together in Megalopolis. In proceeding from Heraea to Aliphera, you will cross the Alpheius, pass over a plain ten stades in width, and then ascend thirty stades through a mountain. The city was named from Alipherus, son of Lycaon. Here are temples of Aesculapius and Minerva: the latter deity is particularly revered among the Alipherenses, because, as they say, she was born and nourished among them.
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§ 2.076 They have dedicated an altar to Jupiter Lecheatas, as having here brought forth Minerva, and they have given the name of Tritonis to a fountain, to which they apply that which is generally reported concerning the river Triton. The statue of Minerva is made of brass; it is the work of Hypatodorus, and is worthy of admiration both for its magnitude and its workmanship. The Alipherenses celebrate a public festival to one of their deities, I think to Minerva.” The narrative of Polybius is to the following effect: — It was in the Social War, BC 219, that Philip, after having taken Psophis and plundered the Eleia, marched from Olympia to Thelpusa, and thence to Heraea, where he repaired the bridge over the Alpheius for the purpose of passing over into Triphylia. It happened at the same time that Philidas, who had been sent from Aetolia with 600 men to assist the Eleians, entered Triphylia at the head of those troops, reinforced by 1000 men of Elis and nearly as many mercenaries in the service of that state. Triphylia (remarks the historian) took its name from Triphylus, one of the sons of Arcas; it was situated in the maritime part of Peloponnesus, between Eleia and Messenia, and contained nine cities, namely, Samicum, Lepreum, Hypana, Typaneae, Pyrgus, Aepium,
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§ 2.077 Bolax, Styllangium, and Phrixa. These the Eleians had not long before gained possession of; they had also, by an exchange with Lydiades, a tyrant of Megalopolis, obtained Aliphera, which had before been attributed to Arcadia. Philidas having sent the Eleians to Lepreum and the mercenaries to Aliphera, waited at Typaneae to observe the movements of Philip, who speedily crossed the bridge over the Alpheius at Heraea, and moved to Aliphera. “This city”, adds Polybius, “stands upon a hill precipitous on every side, to which there is an ascent of more than ten stades. The citadel is on the summit of the hill, and contains a statue of Minerva remarkable for its beauty and magnitude. It is not known by whom or upon what occasion this statue was dedicated, but all agree that it was made by Hypatodorus and Sostratus, and that it is one of their choicest works.” On the morning after his arrival, the weather being serene and clear, Philip ordered ladder bearers to proceed to various parts of the town walls, escorted by mercenaries, who were followed by parties of Macedonians; while he led in person a chosen body of men through some difficult and rocky places, to the citadel. The assault was made at sunrise. The Alipherenses, intent on resisting the attack of the
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§ 2.078 Macedonians on the town walls, left the citadel undefended, so that Philip easily gained the outer inclosure, and set fire to it. The Alipherenses, seeing the flames, and alarmed for the safety of the acropolis, retired into it, and thus allowed the Macedonians to enter the town on all sides: soon afterwards they sent proposals of capitulation to Philip. Philidas having quitted Typaneae and marched to Lepreum, the Typaneatae surrendered their city to Philip, and their example was followed by Hypana and Phigaleia. The Lepreatae, whose city was occupied by some Lacedaemonians and Cretans, as well as by the Eleians and Aetolians brought thither by Philidas, required these troops to leave the place; but it was not until Philip approached the town that their demand was complied with, when the Cretans marched towards Messenia on their way home, and Philidas, with the Spartans and Eleians, retired to Samicum. Lepreum then submitted to the king: as soon as he approached Samicum, the Aetolians and Eleians requested and obtained his permission to march unmolested homeward; Samicum was then also taken, all the other towns surrendered, and the whole of Triphylia was thus reduced in six days.
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§ 2.079 It appears from the remains of the outer walls of Aliphera, on the western side of the hill of Nerovitza, that here stood the main body of the lower town. On this side, therefore, it should seem that the escalade took place while Philip made his way through the rocks and bushes on the eastern side, and under that cover surprised the προάστειον or outer citadel, which probably occupied the lower and larger portion of the tabular summit. The small fortress at the north-eastern angle I take to have been that which Polybius called the Acra or acropolis, and into which the garrison retired. The temple which stood on the terrace, under the eastern side of the upper citadel, I conceive to have been that which contained the celebrated colossal Minerva, the situation being such as is likely to have been dedicated to that deity as the protector of fortresses; it will follow that the temple in the lower level, or proasteium, was that of Aesculapius. The fountain which I have mentioned towards the north-eastern side of the city, seems to have been the Tritonis of Pausanias. The summit of the hill of Nerovitza is higher, I think, than Fanari; it is more pervious to the breezes, and more conveniently situated, with respect to the valley of the Alpheius, than that place, but wants its fine streams and plentiful supply of water.
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§ 2.080 I return after sunset to Fanari by the same road I came, along the valley of the torrent which flows to Nerovitza: here the murmuring of the rivulet, the songs of the nightingales, and the aromatic perfume of the shrubs on the hills, brought by a gentle zephyr, contribute to form the perfection of a Grecian evening in May. Ι purchase from a Turk of Fanari an intaglio on an onyx, about an inch in length, representing a Minerva armed with spear and shield, and clothed in a short tunic hanging in graceful folds over a χιτων ποδήρης, or loose robe reaching to the feet. The design is of the best times, but the preservation is not good. Around the figure is the word ΑΓΗΣΙΠΟΛΙΑΣ, which leaves no doubt on my mind that the figure represents the colossal and much admired statue of Minerva, by Hypatodorus, which stood in the temple of the goddess at Aliphera; for the Greeks often represented their most celebrated or revered statues upon gems and coins, or copied them in miniatures of brass or clay; and I have observed that it is not uncommon to find such representations of them near the places where they were worshipped.
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§ 2.081 May 24. — At 6.15 I set out for Platiana. After winding round the hill of Fanari to the westward, descend at 6.48 into a small plain crossed by a rivulet, which rises behind the western peak of the Fanaritiko. In its passage through the hills, below the plain, it makes a bend so as to approach Nerovitza; on issuing from the hills, it crosses the valley of the Alpheius, and joins that river nearly opposite to Aianni. These hills, of which Nerovitza is one of the most remarkable, are an advanced lower chain parallel to the Fanaritiko. At 6.56 we cross the small stream above mentioned, and at the end of the plain pass over a low ridge into another vale, which is separated from the lower Alpheian valley by a lofty summit ranging in a line with that of Nerovitza. The heights on both sides of the valley which we pass through are covered, but not very thickly, with trees: on the slope of that upon the right are two small villages. Several torrents rush down on either side from the hills, and unite in the vale, which is diversified with woods and cultivated ground. At 7.30 we cross a bridge at the junction of two of the streams flowing to the right; then proceed along the left bank of the united river, among planes and other trees, and occasionally over the foot of the hills which bound the valley to our left: at 7.45 cross another stream flowing from a steep shady ravine on the same side. At 8.30 again cross a rivulet of the same kind, descending directly from the mountain of Alvena.
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§ 2.082 The name Vunuka, which is also given to this mountain, is derived from a castle which formerly stood on the summit, and which was probably of the same date as that of Zakkuka on the Fanaritiko. The river formed from the several streams which we have passed, now takes its course to the right to the Alpheius, through an opening between the heights. We ascend the hill of Platiana, which rises from the left bank of the river, and arrive at a Paleokastro on the summit at 9.15. This is the ruin of a small Hellenic πόλις, similar to those of Arcadia. A narrow level on a long summit surrounded with precipices formed an acropolis; a space on the face of the hill, a little shorter, and of about thrice the breadth was the inclosure of the town. All the walls are of the third order; some of the towers have the flanks considerably longer than the face, as in the ruins at Pavlitza. The citadel is narrower in proportion to its length than any other I have seen, being nearly 700 yards long, with a breadth in no part of more than twenty or thirty. There are cross walls dividing this long space into several inclosures, one of which is eighty-five yards in length, and on a higher level than the others; it is divided from the main lower citadel by a curved wall, and is separated on the opposite side by another wall,
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§ 2.083 [sketch plan] from a narrow rocky promontory, which forms the termination of the summit to the westward. In the lower citadel, just below the curved wall eastward, I find the emplacement, and a few of the seats of a small theatre, fifteen or twenty yards in diameter, so situated immediately behind one of the walls of the citadel, as not to command any prospect of the country. Though it is not to be supposed that the spectators in Greek theatres could always command a view of the external objects, as the scene must have prevented it, it may be suspected that they did in some instances, especially where the theatre was chiefly used for sacred or political assemblies; for it is observable that the theatres of Greece are generally placed in the most beautiful and commanding situations. In the present instance, the wall in front of the theatre is so near that it might itself have served for the scene.
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§ 2.084 About one hundred yards beyond the theatre, in the lower inclosure eastward, is a quadrangular excavation in the rocks, probably a cistern, and then the foundations of another wall crossing the acropolis; one hundred yards farther are the remains of some public edifice, and another wall of separation: from thence the hill descends towards the east-north-east, which is the general direction of the height; and terminates at about 240 yards beyond the last-mentioned transverse wall. I conceive, from the narrative of Polybius already cited, that these must be the ruins of Typaneae; for the situation was perfectly adapted to the object of Philidas, after he had sent forward the greater part of his forces to Lepreum and Aliphera, namely, that of observing the motions of Philip at Heraea. From the summit of the Paleokastro the sea-coast about the Khan of Ai Sidhoro is seen; — a vale which separates the mountain of Smerna, or Lapithus, from Vunuka, or Minthe, leaves the prospect open. The latter mountain rises directly opposite to the Paleokastro to the southward, and Alvena is seen immediately under the summit. This village may possibly stand on the position of Hypana, for this name seems to indicate a lofty situation; and as Aliphera, according to Pausanias, was the frontier town
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§ 2.085 of Arcadia on this side, and was even included in Triphylia at the time of the Social War, we may conclude that Mount Vunuka was also a part of Triphylia, to which district it has been seen that Polybius ascribes Hypana. From Strabo, as well as Polybius Hypana clearly appears to have been at no great distance from Typaneae, and to have been in the hills above the maritime plain of Lepreum. A low transverse ridge in the vale above mentioned, which separates the two mountains, divides the course of the waters. Eastward flows the stream which I crossed at 8.30; in the opposite direction, through a deep ravine between the two mountains, runs that which crosses the maritime plain below Zakari, and falls into the sea a little southward of the Khan of Ai Sidhoro, where I crossed it February 28th. This river appears to be the Pamisus, or Mamaus, or Arcadicus, or Amathus of Strabo, and that which runs eastward is perhaps the Diagon of Pausanias. Proceeding from the eastern termination of the acropolis, I arrive, after a descent of 250 yards to the eastward, at a small height in a hollow between the hill of Platiana and another toward the Alpheius. Here, on a rising ground in a corn-field, are the foundations of a small temple or other public edifice.
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§ 2.086 From thence I descend to the village of Platiana, which stands under the Paleokastro hill, on the northern side. The most agreeable lodging I can find here is under a fig tree, and the best dinner, some new cheese and milk from a mandhra on the hill, with a loaf of maize flour from one of the cottages. Platiana contains about thirty families divided into two hamlets, and is beautifully situated on the slope of the hill amidst gardens, woods, and fountains. Below it, to the northward, there is a great hollow space with a most uneven surface, surrounded by hills and intersected with torrents: its declivities are adorned with copses of firs mixed with a great variety of shrubs, and its ravines are shaded with planes. The ground, as at Olympia and in many parts of the circumjacent country, is broken into little abrupt precipices, where the white argillaceous soil forms a striking contrast with the verdure of the turf and forests. A ridge separates this irregular vale of Platiana from the lower valley of the Alpheius. The woody and diversified country which begins here extends westward as far as the maritime plains of the Eleia, and northward as far as the steep acclivities of Mount Olonos. It was in the midst of this sylvan region, so well adapted to a sportsman, that Scillus, the residence of Xenophon, was situated,
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§ 2.087 at a distance of only two miles and a half from Olympia. Wild boars, one of the great objects of the ancient chase, are common in this woody district, though not generally found in the lower open country near the Alpheius, nor indeed in any other part of the Morea, except in the higher and more woody mountains. Sending orders to my Tartar and Agoyates, whom I had left at Fanari, to meet me at Aianni, I proceed with a Turkish guide to a ruin called the Palati, or Palace, near the bank of the Alpheius. Leaving Platiana at 2 PM, I cross the valley in an eastern direction, and then passing over the height which separates it from the vale of the Alpheius, and which is covered with large firs and pines, descend on the other side by a rugged, steep, and winding road, and arrive, at 3.30, at the Palati [Isova]. The ruin stands not far above the river, in the midst of a fertile corn country near the side of a woody hill, at the foot of which are many fine planes and terebinths, with a shady fountain constructed in the Turkish style, which stands on the side of the road from Lalla to Fanari. I am not a little surprised to find that the palace is the ruin of a Gothic church or hall, of which one end is entire, terminating above in a high acute angle: the low side walls
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§ 2.088 which supported the high shelving roof still remain with a row of windows in them. The centre of the high end-wall is pierced with a great window of the annexed form. [sketch] On one side of this building stands a square church of the same kind of architecture, with a Greek cross over one of the windows, thus; [sketch] on the opposite side there are some remains of other buildings belonging to the monastery, for such these ruins seem to have been. The whole has the appearance of a ruined abbey in England, and the scenery around is well adapted to increase the illusion. I have already remarked that there is a Gothic ruin at Karitena of a similar style: it cannot be doubted that they are works of the same age, that is to say, of the
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§ 2.089 thirteenth or fourteenth century, when, after the conquest of Constantinople, there were several Frank principalities in the Morea. In all the dry places about the Palati I observe great numbers of the formica leo in its inverted conical habitation. These animals are here called ζουζούνια. At 4 P.M. Ι descend obliquely towards the Alpheius: at 4.35 cross a bridge over the river; of which I passed several of the tributaries towards their sources in Mount Vunuka and the adjacent hills, and its westernmost branch just before ascending the hill of Platiana. As the junction of the Erymanthus and Alpheius is in sight at the bridge, about half a mile to the left, it seems evident that the river is the Diagon, which Pausanias describes as falling into the Alpheius nearly opposite to the mouth of the Erymanthus; and as forming the line of separation (southward of the Alpheius ) between Pisaea and Arcadia. The Diagon is probably the same as the Dalion of Strabo, whose Acheron may possibly be the next stream to the eastward, which I crossed towards the upper part of its course this morning at 6.56. There is a narrow level on either side of the Alpheius shaded with planes, sown with
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§ 2.090 kalambokki, and subject to inundations. Our road passes over a height rising from this valley, through shrubs among which the Paliuri predominates. The small village of Bizbardhi stands on the hill to our right: — at 5.05 arrive on a bank immediately overhanging the Alpheius, and opposite to the mouth of the Ladon, which at its junction forms a delta. This delta is the Coraconnasus, or Island of Crows, mentioned by Pausanias, whose observation, that there is no island in the Ladon as large as a ferry-boat, was assuredly not meant to be applied to the Coraconnasus, which is nearly a quarter of a mile in circumference, and contains a fine grove of planes. The Ladon enters the Alpheius with a narrow, but rapid, deep, and turbid stream: having passed opposite to the junction of the rivers, we soon enter upon the narrow level which borders the Alpheius. A Lalliote soldier, in the Albanian dress, who meets us, asks my Turkish guide, the only person accompanying me: “Who is that infidel you have got with you? Is he a physician?” “No”, says my guide in the same contemptuous tone, “he is one of those Mylords that
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§ 2.091 look for old castles, and has been to see the Palace.” At 5.48 we cross the Alpheius, which is wide and reaches to the horse's belly, the water white and turbid; just below the ford there is a fall of several feet in a short space. Arrive at Aianni at 6: find a servant arrived, but no Tartar, horses, or baggage. Aianni and Anemodhuri are two small villages 500 yards asunder, standing on a height which overlooks the low level on the banks of the Alpheius, which is here called the river of Karitena. In each hamlet there is one stone house; the remaining habitations are thatched huts shaped like a great oval tent; a large post in the middle supports the roof, which slopes to within three or four feet of the ground, where a wall of that height, made of pliant wicker branches interwoven with upright sticks, forms the rest of the structure. I procure a lodging in one of these huts. In the fields between the village and the brow which looks down upon the level of the Alpheius, I find the remains of a small Roman building, near which are several squared blocks of stone. Many coins are found in ploughing or in digging the surrounding fields. These vestiges, inconsiderable as they are, are sufficient, I think, when combined with the descriptions of Polybius and Pausanias, to fix this spot for the site of Heraea.
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§ 2.092 The fifteen stades of Pausanias from Heraea to the Ladon, his twenty stades from the Ladon to the Erymanthus, his ten stades across the level of the Alpheius, and his thirty stades of ascent to Aliphera are all found to be perfectly accurate on the supposition of Aianni and Nerovitza having been respectively the sites of Heraea and Aliphera. Near the summit of the mountain to the eastward of Aianni, some remains of a Hellenic fortress are described to me at the ruined village of Papadha; here are the sources of a torrent, dry in summer, which flows to the Alpheius, and seems to be the same which I crossed in the descent from Zatuna to the Alpheius on the 22d. The position of Papadha answers to that of Buphagium, for Pausanias says: “that Buphagium stands above Melaeneae at the sources of the river Buphagus, which descends to the Alpheius.” Pliny, Theophrastus, and Aelian, concur in reporting that the wine of Heraea had the property of making men mad and women fruitful. A sweetish red wine is still made here, and it has more flavour and body than almost any wine I have met with in the Morea.
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§ 2.093 In sufficient quantities, therefore, it might produce for a time one of the effects anciently attributed to the wine of Heraea: as to the other, its reputation at least is gone: and certainly the poor women of modern Arcadia never drink of it for the sake of the virtues ascribed to it by the ancients. There were some fables of the same kind related of the wine of Troezen and of Ceryneia in Achaea. I find the unfortunate inhabitants in expectation of the arrival, tomorrow, of eighty Lalliotes, for whom they are preparing ten or twelve sheep, with wine and bread. These men are making a tour of the country under pretence of keeping it clear of robbers.
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§ 2.094 CHAPTER XIV: ARCADIA. ACHAIA. MAY 25. — Having hired two horses from the village, and left orders for the Tartar and baggage to follow, I set out, at 5.45, on the road to Vyzitza and Kalavryta, passing through woods of oak beautifully intermixed with corn-fields, vineyards, and copses of shrubs. At 5.55, Loti, a small village, is on the right. At 6.25, ascending the hills in the direction of a new built pyrgo belonging to Arnaut Oglu, of Tripolitza, I halt for 10 minutes at a ruined church to which the Aianniotes had directed my attention, but where I find nothing remarkable. Belesh is situated on the right bank of the Ladon, half an hour from its mouth. Having passed the tower of Arnaut-Oglu, which stands on the summit of a ridge sloping towards the junction of the Alpheius and Ladon, we descend through a forest of oaks, and at 7.04 enter a pleasant
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§ 2.095 valley watered by the river of Langadha, the ancient Tuthoa, which receives its modern name from a town on a mountain six or seven miles to the right in the direction of Dhimitzana. Though now shallow, this river is rapid and large in winter, as its wide and stony bed indicates. A little above the place where I crossed it at 7.12, it is joined on the left side by a small torrent descending through a deep gorge from Zulatika, a village on the side of a hill three or four miles distant, where the Lalliotes burnt a house the other day under the pretence that it belonged to a thief. The Tuthoa joins the Ladon one mile and a half to the left, opposite to the small village of Renesi, which stands on a high bank. I find that the Ladon throughout this country is called Rufea, Rufia, or Rofia, and that the Alpheius bears that name only below its junction with the Ladon; above which it is usually called the River of Karitena. Higher up however the Ladon is more commonly called the Foniatiko, or river of Fonia: here it flows, for the most part, between high, steep, woody banks, which inclose a narrow level on either side of the stream. We proceed along the summit of a ridge included between the Tuthoa and Ladon,
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§ 2.096 and halt, at 8.15, for a quarter of an hour at a commanding eminence, from whence there is a gradual slope of two miles to the banks of the Ladon, where is a conical height like a great tumulus. On a projection of the opposite or right bank of the river, stand Tumbiki and a khan which is in the road from Tripolitza to Lalla. A little above Tumbiki, on the left bank, there are said to be some remains of a Hellenic city, at a ruined village called Vanena. Below us, to the right, at a small distance, is the village of Kokhla. Our direction is now towards the mountain of Vretembuga, upon reaching which we ascend the foot of it, and pass round it, with the summit on the left; at 9.20, leave the Tripolitza road on the right and descend into a little vale, where, at 9.35, the village of Alvanitza remains close on the right; from thence, after passing up another small valley under the mountain of Vretembuga we arrive, at 10, at Vyzitza, a village with a large church and several good houses, some of which, however, are in ruins. Another village, called Vervitza, somewhat larger, is on the side of the same hill, half a mile distant. Both enjoy a fine air and a plentiful supply of good water. The people of Vyzitza stoutly assert that their water is the better and lighter of the two, and the Vervitziotes probably say the same. The merchants of Tripolitza come to these villages to buy butter and cheese. Of the former alone 1000 kantars are yearly brought for sale from the neighbouring country. I lodge in the bouse of Kyr Niko, the tailor, shoemaker, and archon of the village. His dwelling is one long chamber, with a fireplace for a kitchen at one end; he and his sons' families all live together. My baggage, &c. arrive at 2.30: the computed distance for loaded horses from Fanari is eight hours and a half.
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§ 2.097 May 26. — This morning I visit the ruins at Vanena, setting out at 5.45, and arriving at the ruins at 7.15, From Vyzitza the road leads through the vale under Vervitza, and then through a narrow valley included between a hill which overhangs that village and the mountain of Vretembuga; it then descends upon Vanena along the side of the latter mountain, which is covered with wood, chiefly oaks and wild pears. Some tents on one of the heights near the Ladon now shelter all the remaining inhabitants of what once was the village of Vanena. A brook from Vretembuga joins the Ladon, which is here called Rufia, Another brook, which joins the former, comes from behind a height which has two conical summits.
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§ 2.098 Here probably stood the acropolis of the ancient city which occupied this position, and which seems clearly to have been Thelpusa. No remains of walls now exist on the height; but on its slope towards the Ladon I find some Hellenic foundations, and the lower parts of six columns, one foot nine inches in diameter, standing in their original places. Towards the rivulet are the remains of a Roman building about twelve yards long and six wide, with the ruins of an arched roof. One of the corners of the building has a stone with an ornament upon it, to which I find a corresponding fragment in a ruined church of St. John not far from the brook. [sketch] Here likewise are several other wrought stones; and among the shrubs around the ruined church are some Hellenic foundations, a small portal in its place, and many fragments of plain columns two feet in diameter. On the opposite bank, lying in the water, I find a small fluted Doric column with twenty shallow flutings, the diameter one foot, the length four feet five inches.
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§ 2.099 The ruined church stands in a fine grove of oaks and kotrives, as the Moreites call the terebinth, which grows plentifully, and sometimes to a considerable size, in the moist and shady situations of Arcadia. By the guidance of a man of Vanena I ford the Ladon, which is deep and rapid, and here embraces a large island bearing some planetrees, and covered with fennel; by the side of which is a smaller one, so that I have three streams to pass. The water comes up to the horse's shoulder: my guide boasts of sometimes passing it in winter up to his neck. The only danger to the inexperienced, he says, is from giddiness, arising from the rapidity of the current. In the ruined church of St. Athanasius the Miraculous, on the right bank, I find a plain column one foot three inches in diameter, another with twenty Doric flutings, one foot nine inches in diameter, and a Doric capital of the same diameter, three feet square at the plinth. Two large plain columns, one foot three inches in diameter, form the door-posts of the church, and a great Roman tile serves for the holy table. The saint, as his epithet imports, has the reputation of performing miracles.
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§ 2.100 Not long ago, according to my guide, he half strangled one night a Turk of Lalla, who had begun to plunder the saint's church to complete his pyrgo. The cultivated land about the church is called Zamba, perhaps from a village which once existed here. The hills beyond it are woody, steep, and very picturesque. It is not surprising that the modern Peloponnesians should consider the Ladon the main stream of the Alpheius, or that they should have given it the name of Rufea, which is a corruption of Alpheius, in preference to the Karitena branch for it is the handsomest river in the Peninsula, by its depth, its rapid, even, unfailing course, and its beautiful banks; compared to it the others are rocky or sandy torrents. [The process of change in this instance illustrates what I conceive to have taken place at Troy. Seven or eight centuries after the time of Homer, the name Scamander was applied not only to the united river, but to the branch also, which in the time of the poet was called Simoeis. The examples of such changes in the names of rivers are by no means rare. See Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, c. 6.] As high as Spathari, a bridge and village three or four miles above Vanena, it produces the κέφαλος, or gray mullet, the λαμβράκι, or perch, and the χέλι, or eel; all which, observes my Thelpusian guide, are fish of the sea: in every other part of its course are found the πέστροβα,
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§ 2.101 or trout, the τριχιο, and the μουστάκί. I know not exactly to what fish he applies the last two names; but considering the etymology of the words μουστάκι and barbel, it may be conjectured that they are the same fish; τριχιο would seem to imply a fish with hair upon it, or perhaps of a form extremely slender. Half a mile below the church of St. Athanasius stands the village of Tumbiki, where a promontory projects into the bed of the river; on the summit of it there is a mound apparently artificial. Just above this position a torrent joins the Ladon. Of Thelpusa, and the course of the Ladon below that city, as far as its junction with the Alpheius, Pausanias thus writes: “Below the temple of Ceres Eleusinia, the Ladon passes the city Thelpusa, which is situated on its left bank, on (or at) a lofty hill, but the greater part is now deserted, so that the agora, which was formerly in the middle of the city, is now at the end of it. In Thelpusa there is a temple of Aesculapius, and another of the Twelve Gods, the greater part of which is now levelled with the soil. Beyond Thelpusa the Ladon descends to the temple of Ceres in Onceium: the Thelpusii call the goddess Erinnys.
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§ 2.102 According to report, Oncus was son of Apollo, and reigned over the place named Onceium in the Thelpusia. The statues in the temple are of wood, except the faces, hands, and feet, which are of Parian marble. That of Erinnys bears the box called Ciste in the left hand, and a torch in the right, and is about nine feet high. The statue of Ceres Lusia is about six feet high. The Ladon, leaving the temple of Erinnys, passes that of Apollo Onciates on the left, and on the right that of the Boy Aesculapius, where is the sepulchre of Trygon, who is said to have been the nurse of Aesculapius. The river Tuthoa falls into the Ladon at the place called by the Arcadians Pedium, which is the boundary of the Thelpusii and Heraeenses. At the junction of the Ladon with the Alpheius is the Island of Crows. Some think that Enispe, Stratie, and Rhipe, places mentioned by Homer, were inhabited islands in the Ladon; but those who hold this opinion must be mistaken, for the Ladon
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§ 2.103 contains not any islands equal even in magnitude to a ferry-boat, and though second to none of the rivers, either of the Barbarians or Greeks, in beauty, is not of such a magnitude that islands can exist in it like those of the Ister and Eridanus.” The mountain of Vretembuga answers to the λόφος μέγας, or great hill, of Pausanias; he seems therefore to have intended to say that the town was situated at or near, and not upon, a high hill. Above Vanena, on the same bank of the river, some vestiges of the temple of Ceres Eleusinia might perhaps be found; and if Tumbiki, the only remarkable site on the right bank between Thelpusa and the Tuthoa, be the site of the temple of Aesculapius, and the tumulus on that promontory the tomb of Trygon, as I suspect, the temple of Apollo Onciates was nearly opposite to it on the left bank, and between the latter and Thelpusa stood the temple of Erinnys at Onceium. I cannot, however, hear of any remains at those places to tempt me to explore farther. There is an island in the Ladon nearly opposite Tumbiki, which appears to me not less than three or four hundred yards in length, and that which I crossed is as much. They bear plane-trees and shrubs, and are inundated in winter. Either,
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§ 2.104 therefore, Pausanias was deficient in his usual accuracy, when he said that the Ladon contained no island larger than a ferry-boat, or the islands must have been formed since his time. I return by the same road to Vyzitza. Vyzitza and Vervitza contain together about 150 families. All persons above twelve years of age pay twenty-five piastres a year, and those above fifteen, fifty, to the χρέη, or share of the contributions to government. A learned Vyzitziote tries to persuade me that the river at Vanena is the ancient Alpheius, and the ruins those of a city which he calls Βοιηαν πόλις, and of which name he supposes Vanena to be a corruption. Where he got this idea I cannot discover. At 3 P. M. I proceed towards Kalavryta. At 3.30 on the descent, after crossing the heights behind Vyzitza, the castle of Galata and a place with four houses so called, is half a mile on the right. The castle, which is a structure of the middle ages, has several high round towers, and stands on a precipitous hill; it is reckoned three and a half hours from Dhimitzana. Soon afterwards we pass a church situated in a grove of gigantic prinaria, or holly-oaks, and at 8.35 pass through the little village of Katzulia. From thence we descend through a forest of
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§ 2.105 small but lofty oaks, and at 4.10 leave the village of Syriamu Kurtaghi, otherwise called Syriamaki, half a mile on the right There is another Siriamu on the opposite side of the Ladon, where a plain of no great extent branches out of that of the Ladon, which is here narrow and subject to inundations. Having descended into the vale of the river, we cross, at 4.35, a small tributary of the Ladon flowing from a gorge on the right, beyond which is Kerpeni. We cross it just above its junction with the Ladon, and then pass a small level grown with kalambokki, beyond which the Ladon flows between steep cliffs, under which a little slope on the riverside is shaded with plane, oak, cornel, and arbutus, the river running rapidly through the grove; it is said to be ten feet deep in some parts, the breadth is from fifty to eighty yards: the waters are turbid, and there are little cataracts at intervals. The road continues to follow the left bank of the river through this woody pass till 5, when, at a small level opening, we cross the river by the Lady's Bridge as it is called. A road to the right here leads to Kerpeni and Valtesiniko, from whence the distance is nine hours to Karitena by Dhimitzana, or Zygovisti, and the like to Tripolitza by Maguliana. After a halt of ten minutes at the bridge, we cross a little plain of kalambokki, and following up the river at a quick pace, arrive, at 5.30, in a plain, beyond which the river comes through a gorge to the north, in the direction of Mount Zyria. We here quit the Ladon, and passing up a plain which branches to the north-west, arrive, at the end of a mile, at the foot of the hills which border it to the north-eastward; here stands the village of Podhogora. — Ascend these woody heights, and arrive at Strezova, a town of 100 or 150 houses in a lofty situation. The baggage was four hours and a half from Vyzitza. Strezova belongs to the vilayeti of Kalavryta. A Turkish aga possesses a pyrgo, and there is a Greek captain of Armatoli named Makri Vasili, who resides here with twenty-five men, maintained by the district. This mode of keeping the roads safe from robbers seems to shew that the state of society in this country is something similar to what it was in England in the reign of Alfred, who is said to have thrown upon the villages the expense and responsibility of keeping the country clear of robbers.
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§ 2.106 May 27. At 5.50 descend from Strezova into a plain belonging to it, called Palea Katuna; the descent is over a woody hill; the plain is watered by a stream, of which the sources are said to be an hour distant; it enters the plain from a gorge on the left, and to the right joins the Ladon: we cross it at 6.21. Near the bank there is a wood of oaks and other trees, which is not a very common occurrence in the valleys of Greece. Ten minutes beyond the river we pass through another cultivated tract belonging to Strezova, called Kuvelo. Behind us I see the monastery and village of Khassia on the side of the mountain, to the west of Strezova. The vale now runs nearly north: the greater part of it is uncultivated and covered with a fine long thick grass, interspersed with oak trees. At 7 the village of Tjarnali is half a mile to the left, at the foot of the mountain. At 7.12, at the end of the plain, we begin to cross a ridge which connects a high mountain on the left with a lower on the right, at the foot of which stands the little village of Mamaluka. At 7.30 halt ten minutes on the summit of the ridge, and then descend through a forest of oaks into a vale, watered by a rivulet running from left to right. Halt from 8 to 9 on the bank of this stream, then crossing it, ascend the hills on the opposite side, and arrive, in half an hour from our last halt, at Karnesi. The plain below this place is about three miles long,
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§ 2.108 surrounded by high mountains, and watered by several small rivers. On a little insulated height, in the middle of the plain, stands a hamlet called the Kalyvia of Mazi, which is a village on Mount Khelmos: beyond this the streams flow in one body southward instead of eastward, which was their former course, and at length join the Ladon. From the north-eastern side of the plain rises a great mountain which adjoins Khelmos on the couth, and is named Turtovana. The river we crossed is called the river of Klitoras, as flowing from a village of that name. Clitor, therefore, is probably at no great distance. Leaving, however, the exploring of this site for the present, I prosecute the route to Kalavryta, and descend from Karnesi through a forest of oaks: at 10.07 cross a torrent, then pass over another ridge covered with a similar forest, and at 10.20 descend into a plain, which at first is half a mile wide, lying in a north and south direction, but which afterwards branches up to the right, to the foot of Mount Khelmos, where stand two large villages, Sudhena and Pera Sudhena, situated under the mountain, upon the higher parts of which are seen extensive woods of firs, and large patches of snow. The ordinary road from Tripolitza to Kalavryta passes through Sudhena, and from thence
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§ 2.109 crosses a root of Khelmos, and descends upon Kalavryta. Instead of falling into this road, we continue to the left of it, and pass three copious fountains, the sources of the stream which runs through the gorge of Karnesi into the valley of Clitor; at the middle fountain of the three I observe some ancient foundations; at the third source, at 10.48, we leave to the right the branch of the plain towards Sudhena, and, mounting the hill which closes the plain, arrive at 11.20 on the summit of a high ridge which commands a view of the plain of Kalavryta, and of the village of Visoka, the latter near the summit of an opposite range of mountains, over which is seen Mount Voidhia. On the descent the large monastery of St. Laura remains half a mile on the left, in which direction appears also the whole range of Mount Olonos. The road now descends obliquely to the right, as far as the town of Kalavryta, where we arrive at 12.20; a quarter of an hour short of the town are some copious fountains, the streams from which fall down the steep declivity, and water some cultivated grounds in their passage; a part also is diverted into the town by an aqueduct. If Kalavryta be Cynaetha, this spring must be the Alysson, which was so called from its reputation of being a
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§ 2.110 cure for the bite of a mad dog. It will follow also that the plain of Sudhena is the territory of Lusi, situated between Clitor and Cynaethae, which was plundered by the Aetolians at the beginning of the Social War, and where, in the time of Pausanias, remained the temple of Diana Hemeresia. The ancient remains at the fountains of the river of Karnesi, indicate perhaps the site of that building. Kalavryta evidently takes its name from the “fine sources” which I have mentioned. The town stands just above the edge of the plain, on either side of the bed of a wide torrent, descending directly from Mount Khelmos, the western summit of which, covered with snow, is seen over the back of the town. A mountain attached to it on the west is called Kiniu [probably Kynigou, the “hunter's mountain”]. Kalavryta contains scarcely 100 Turkish families: the rest, to the number of 500, are Greek. Both Turks and Greeks possess farms, cultivated by Greek metayers on the usual terms, but the greater part of the 114 villages of the district are Kefalokhoria, inhabited by Greeks cultivating their own lands, or by a still greater number who subsist by the produce of their
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§ 2.111 flocks, or by tending those belonging to Turkish or Greek proprietors; the export productions of the district being principally butter and cheese. The number of kharatjes is upwards of 6000; and as the vilayeti has maintained its population better than any other in the Morea, except Mani, the capitation to each person is not heavy. Two hours from hence under a precipice overhanging the right bank of the river, on the road to Vostitza, stands the convent of Megaspilio the largest in Greece, and so called from its being formed out of a great cavern. It possesses many Metokhia, some of which are entire villages. The valley of Kalavryta lies in the direction of east and west; a deep stream, which issues from the lower heights of Olonos, flows through it, and then follows the gorges of Megaspilio to the sea, which it joins at Dhiakofto to the east of Vostitza. The valley is marshy, particularly opposite to the town, and the mountains being too high and too near to allow a good ventilation, the situation is one of the most unhealthy in the Morea. In the two afternoons which I passed at Kalavryta I found the air more close and disagreeable than I have yet experienced since the warm weather began, though the elevation above the sea must be considerable, and though the sky was covered as it generally has been after mid-day, since I entered Arcadia. Polybius describes the climate and situation of Cynaetha as the most disagreeable in Arcadia. The plain is said to have become more productive as well as less pernicious to health, since the practice of draining the land has prevailed, though it is still done very imperfectly. The only remains of antiquity I can discover are on the edge of the valley, immediately opposite to the town. Here are two catacombs excavated in the rock, containing each a single chamber with ledges in the sides for coffins. One of the catacombs has been converted into the sanctuary of a church, of which there are still some traces of constructed walls on the outside of the cavern, together with two pieces of a small plain column with a Doric capital.
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§ 2.112 May 28. — There is a high rocky hill with a flat summit a mile eastward of the town, which I thought from its appearance might have been the site of the acropolis of Cynaetha, but the only remains upon it are those of a modern castle called Tremola, the walls of which follow the crest of a precipice forming a natural defence to the tabular summit. I ride up there this morning and from thence to a higher summit half a mile farther, which is covered with a forest of firs: I could not discover the smallest remains of Hellenic antiquity on either hill, but the pure air, the cool temperature, and the extensive prospect, fully compensated for the ride while the greater height gave me some bearings which I could not obtain on the lower hill. Several points of Aetolia, Locris, and Phocis known to me, were distinguishable on the opposite side of the Corinthiac gulph: the whole of Khelmos, with its glaciers, and forests, and precipices, appeared close at hand: and to the right of them the mountains near Lykuria, Vitina, and Langadha, then the whole range of Olono, and in front, on the opposite side of the vale of Kalavryta, the mountain called Tjefteri, upon which Visoka and Kerpeni are situated, and behind it Mount Voidhia. Kerpeni contains many large Greek houses with gardens, and is almost as large as Kalavryta. Beyond Mount Tremola, towards Megaspilio, there is a cultivated hollow from which a rivulet descends to the river of Kalavryta; it contains the village of Vrakhni.
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§ 2.113 May 29. — At 3 this morning I felt two earthquakes, with an interval of two minutes between them; the first was slight, and might not have been observable except in the stillness of such an early hour, but the second rattled the wooden framework of the house of Kyr Ianni Papadhopulo, in which I was lodged, in such a manner as would have been alarming at any time. I think it is a remark of Aristotle, that earthquakes in Greece occur frequently at day-break. At 5.30 I quit Kalavryta and begin to pass along the foot of the mountain, leaving the fountain Alysson on the left, and at 6 the monastery of St. Laura, situated over against Visoka; from this village there is a regular slope descending into the valley, on the border of which stands a small village, one of the Metokhia of Megaspilio. At 6.08, having crossed a bridge over the river of Kalavryta, which issues from a vale and woody mountain on the left, we proceed to the extremity of the valley in the direction of the north-eastern summit of the range of Olono, which here terminates in three separate rocky peaks called Tris Ghynekes, or the Three Women. At 6.45, enter at the end of the plain a pass which leads to Kuvelo; this is a small village situated in a narrow valley watered by a stream which rises near
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§ 2.115 Kuteli; it is a branch of the river which flows into the sea at Tjapes to the east of Vostitza, hence commonly called the river of Vostitza. Our road follows up the vale of Kuvelo, and, at 7.25 enters a picturesque pass, in which, at 7.35, Kuteli remains in a woody situation on the mountain's side to the left. From thence we pass through a wood of oaks and descend into a hollow, where is some cultivation at the foot of one of the peaks of Tria Ghynekes, This mountain is clothed with fir above and oaks below; beyond it I perceive a bare rocky summit covered with snow. At 8.30, we descend towards a valley in which there is a village called Manesi, some cultivated ground, and a small tributary of the Aivlasitiko, or river of Ai Vlasi. Besides the high mountain on the south, this valley is surrounded with woody hills, on one of which stands Triklistra three quarters of an hour from Manesi. Halt a quarter of an hour at a mandhra; at 8.53, arrive at the extremity of the vale of Manesi which reaches to the last falls of Mount Olono. At 9 cross another stream from that mountain flowing in the same direction as the former, and then pass along the foot of the mountain. At 9.23, the Kalyvia of Ai Vlasi are a quarter
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§ 2.116 of an hour on the left — at 9.53 we cross the Aivlasitiko by a bridge. This river descends from a deep ravine included between two high summits; in the upper part of the ravine are seen the two large villages, Ai Vlasi, or Aio Vasili and Lower Ai Vlasi, encircled by trees and verdure. A high snowy peak rises immediately above the villages to the south-eastward, called Krya Vrysi. Not far beyond the sources of the river of Ai Vlasi, are those of the principal branch of the Peneius, which follows in the opposite direction a narrow valley, similar to the gorge of Ai Vlasi. Thus the ravines of the two streams form a continued opening, which separates the great summits to the westward, known generally by the name of Olono, from those of Krya Vrysi, Tris Ghynekes, and another farther southward, called Astra, which is near the town of Dhivri. There are some extensive forests of firs upon these mountains. In the valley of the Upper Peneius just mentioned, stand a village and monastery called Ghermotzana, or Ghermotzani. A road from Ai Vlasi to Lalla passes along the left side of the valley near Ghermotzani, and for the most part through woods of fir. The slope of the mountain below Ai Vlasi to the
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§ 2.1117 northward is covered with vineyards and cornfields. The two villages produce good butter and small cheeses, which are considered better than those of Parnassus. The mountains at the back of the villages are covered with firs. At 10.05 we arrive at Kastritza, as the vestiges of a Hellenic fortress are called. The place is about two miles in a direct line to the northward of Ai Vlasi, on a height along the western side of which flows a brook to join the Aivlasitiko. So little of the walls remains that neither the form nor the size of the inclosure can be exactly traced, nor could I find any remains of an acropolis on the upper part of the hill. But though the remains are not extensive, I think it probable that they mark the position of Tritaea, that having been one of the inland cities of Achaea, and the nearest to Arcadia, to which province it was once considered as belonging. The distance of Kastritza from the sea seems to accord also with the data of Pausanias, who places Pharae on the river Peirus, at the distance of seventy stades from the mouth of that river, and Tritaea 120 stades inland from Pharae. According to Polybius, Tritaea lay in a direction from Rhium towards Arcadia; its territory bordered upon the Patraea and Pharaea.
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§ 2.118 Like Pharae, it was made a dependency of Patrae, by Augustus. In the time of Pausanias it preserved a temple of the gods called the Greatest, with their statues made of clay; and a temple of Minerva, from which the ancient statue (probably made of brass) had been removed to Rome, and its place supplied by one of marble. Before the entrance into the town from Pharae, there was a sepulchre of a young man and his wife, constructed of white marble and adorned with a painting by Nicias, which represented the woman seated on an ivory chair, her female servant holding an umbrella over her head; the young man was standing before her clothed in a shirt, with a purple cloak oyer it, and was attended by a servant holding javelins in one hand, and leading dogs by the other. We quit Kastritza at 10.30, and enter the pass of Nezera at 10.50. Here a large and rapid torrent, I presume the ancient Petrus, descending from the summit of Mount Olono in a northerly direction, suddenly turns westward through a deep rocky ravine, inclosed between Olono and a lower mountain, which is separated from Mount Voidhia only by the pass of Makheleria, on the direct road from Kalavryta to Patra. The highest summit of Olono slopes with a rapid descent into the ravine
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§ 2.119 of Nezera, and admits only of a scanty cultivation around a few small villages on its sides. The mountain which bounds the pass on the northern side is rather more cultivable. We proceed along the side of the latter, and at 11.17, pass through the village of Vendra, which is opposite to that of Kombigadhi on the slope of Olono. From Kombigadhi, which contains about twenty houses, there is an ascent of three hours to the summit of Olono, where, between the two highest tops, there is a small plain not yet free from snow, but which in summer affords both corn and pasture. The season for conducting the flocks thither does not begin until June, or a little sooner or later, according to the weather. A too early pasture there is said to be fatal; this the shepherds attribute to a poisonous plant which dies in June, but it is more probably owing to the damp ground and watery food. About the beginning of that month they sow barley in the same plain, while it is yet moist with the melted snow: the harvest is in August. As we approach Nezera, I observe on the opposite side of the river, at the foot of Olono, a monastery, with a pretty garden formed in terraces under a projection of rock. It is dedicated to the Panaghia, and inhabited only by three or four monks. Opposite to it, on the
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§ 2.120 right bank, are the remains of a castle of the time of the lower empire, built undoubtedly for the purpose of commanding this strong pass, which, like all passes, is rendered more strong and important by the general want of roads in the country. The peasantry alone might here arrest a large force by merely rolling down stones upon them. At 11.45 we arrive at Nezera, sometimes called Great Nezera as being the principal village of a subordinate division of the Kalavryta Kazasi, but belonging to the ecclesiastical province of Patra. Besides Nezera, the district contains two considerable villages, Kalanistro and Kalano; six smaller, Lopesi, Platano, Spodhiana, Lefkomata, Kombigadhi, Vendra; and three convents, the Panaghia, Kalogrio, and Kakolangadhi. The village of Nezera is situated about half way up the mountain, above the right bank of the river, in a spot where are some good springs and a few fruit trees: it contains about fifty houses. It suffered much from the Albanians in the Russian war; before that time the accommodations were so good, that the consuls at Patra were often in the habit of retiring here during the hot months, when the elevated situation, and the free current of the maestrale through the Aulon must make it a very agreeable and healthy residence. The village stands about the middle of the Stena of the river, which below these straits receives several other streams, winds over the plains in a north-westerly direction, and joins the sea at Aliki, a salt work, near two villages called the Akhaies where, if this be the Peirus as I cannot doubt, I should expect to find Olenus. I am told that the villages from whence the ascent to the summit of Mount Olono is most easy, are Kompigadhi, in the district of Kalavryta, Alupokhori, in that of Patra, and Ghermotzani, in Gastuni.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Composed ca. 1830 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.